Uber’s Ice Cream Stunt and the Future of Get-It-Now Local Commerce

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With instant delivery, the local advertising market comes alive all of a sudden. Because now huge chunks of commerce where Amazon has stomped out mom-and-pops now becomes viable again because, at least for now — Amazon can’t get it to you same day, if you ab-fab-gotta-have-it-now-now-now. This trickles down into new reasons for mom-and-pops to, you guessed it, advertise online…

Does the ‘Arms Race’ Over Mapping Tech Benefit the Local Consumer?

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As the consumer’s relationship with local information has shifted from search to discovery, so has their relationship with maps. The question for Google and Apple is whether 3D mapping is an innovation built to sustain, or disrupt, the search-based local web that Google envisioned when it launched Maps in 2005…

As Deals Look Forward, a ‘Red Herring’ Threatens Growth

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For LivingSocial, a strong editorial voice in selecting and presenting “experiences” – whether online or offline — makes its brand harder to replicate. Voice, whether that’s conveyed through the kind of deals offered or through the content that surrounds it, is hugely important to creating value that’s resistant to the degenerative pull of commoditization…

How Mobile Is Transforming Local Marketing

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By using mobile-location data and predictive analytics, advertisers can reach users with deals based upon where they work, live and socialize. If a relevant ad is delivered and the transaction can be completed in one-or-two clicks, mobile advertising will provide what local merchants are willing to pay for – real sales results…

Billions in Local Ad Dollars Surge to Online — But Just a Trickle to News

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We hear a lot about the surging growth of local online ad revenue, and, to be sure, the numbers are growing fast — to $16.4 billion in 2011 (up 18% annually) and $19.90 billion projected for 2012 (up 22.2%), according to Borrell Associated. But very little of that revenue is flowing to “pure-play” news hyperlocals…

Advice for Mayer: Make Yahoo the Local King of the ‘Internet of Things’

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Local and mobile are two areas where Yahoo could shore up its business and, over time, dramatically improve its results. And if it plays the game well, it might be able to shift from a portal to a more dynamic provider of useful things for a hungry, mobile, social Web populace…

In Russia and Eastern Europe, Daily Deals Market Shrinks As Well

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A few weeks ago, I spent some time in the Ukraine, watching a lot of soccer and wandering around Kiev. While there aren’t a lot of hyperlocal publications in Eastern Europe, there is a strong daily deals market, and it is dealing with some of the same issues that the American market is — consolidation, possible contraction — and some different ones as well, particularly potential legal issues…

Study Finds That Daily Deals Might Actually Be a ‘Sustainable’ Model

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A new report indicates that the daily deal is far more sustainable than previously thought. The Rice University study took a deep dive into the longitudinal impact of daily deal campaigns and found that key performance metrics like customer acquisition and value remained steady even as businesses ran seven or more campaigns. Street Fight caught up with Utpal Dholakia, the author of the study, to discuss what the research means for the industry…

Twitter Loses Significant Local Audience in Cutting Off LinkedIn

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In the purely hyperlocal sense of the word, LinkedIn is not like a Patch.com or a Foursquare. But, like Facebook, it is one of the primary filters though which people view social graph data. And social graph data, by definition, is local to some degree. Twitter’s decision to exclude the network from its API risks giving up on sizable growth opportunities…

Ex-Patch EIC: Journatic Illustrates Cost/Quality Issue in Hyperlocal

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If I were to prescribe Journatic a fix for this recent ailment (beyond, you know, not faking bylines anymore), it would be to show a real investment in journalism, in all senses of that word. We get that you’re “-atic” — cost savvy and operationally slick. How bout showing everyone you can also be “Journo”, and slow down and do some meaningful work? It might be money well spent…

Using Twitter as a Hyperlocal Media Utility

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Although often associated with breaking news distribution, Twitter is more than a broadcast channel; it can facilitate the local B2B, B2C and C2C communication required for a truly active online bulletin board. The shared economy will work most efficiently with a communal media infrastructure that facilitates the messaging required to match transactional participants…

As Content and Commerce Merge, Gilt Comes Out Ahead

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Gilt Groupe gets that shopping and magazines (or what used to be magazines) are rapidly merging. Rather than make an nod to editorial with stupid puns and obnoxious copy (not naming names, but), Gilt took a different approach, hiring journalists or writers with expertise or knowledge in the field. And they gave those writers a mandate to create useful content that not only plugs the wares but also, equally, is useful and interesting…

How Marketers Can Connect With Moms on a Hyperlocal Level

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For brands, it would appear that mobile is the way to a busy mom’s heart: usage of mobile for product/brand recommendations nearly doubled in 2011 to 33 percent. With moms relying on smartphones more than ever before, brands may want to think about upping their mobile targeting ad campaigns to reach moms directly at the point of purchase through apps like RedRover.

For Troubled News Industry, Is It Enough to ‘Pivot’?

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“Let’s just assume that the traditional newspaper organization is a loss and will not survive, and come up with other plans to produce local journalism,” said the AP’s Jonathan Stray. “I may or may not be right about the possibility of survival for the former news industry, but I think this point of view forces the right questions.”

Does the New TribLocal Deserve Time Out Chicago’s Trash Talk?

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I’ve looked at what Journatic has produced at TribLocal — it’s only editing the print version of the Chicago Tribune-owned suburban hyperlocal network so far — and it’s not worthless garbage…

Why Loyalty Programs Are Broken — And How to Fix Them

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The customer loyalty vertical is red-hot. Startups from Silicon Valley to Chicago are working hard to innovate in this area, and, in so doing, are revolutionizing the way brick-and-mortar businesses do business. But startups need to look beyond the simple punch-card model and expand their loyalty products to include features that will effectively influence customer behavior…

As Passive Loyalty Platforms Arise, Will Merchants Miss the Check-In?

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What effect does asking less of the consumer have on the value proposition for the merchant? For companies like Foursquare whose product is built on user-generated data, a passive platform means less relevant and lower quality content. The check-in, for all its issues, created over two billion pieces of content in less than three years…

Why Mobile Can’t ‘Save’ Local News

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The only thing that saves local news is really good, unique local content and community allegiances that make it clear the news product is more than just a way to make money. The commitment has to be obvious. This is why a handful of mom-and-pop hyperlocal blogs have flourished as lucrative small businesses. And this is why the best growth at Patch is driven by the most committed local editors who weave themselves into the community fabric…

Using Content Management Tools to Unleash Local Media

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Rebelmouse, the creation of Paul Berry, ex-CTO of the Huffington Post, is a publishing platform that curates articles from the tweets, retweets and links from Twitter and Facebook accounts and displays them in the now popular Pinterest-tile format. The new platform validates how easy it is to leverage social media for publishing…

Apple Crashes the Hyperlocal Party

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The maps product that Apple showed goes a long ways towards effectively replacing Google Maps. And its just the latest salvo in a developing campaign by both sides to capitalize on the hyperlocal market. Apple Maps, iTunes, Passport and the other developing applications on iOS are a clear path to entering the hyperlocal market in a very smooth, sophisticated and gradual way — the Apple Way…