Daily Deals Biz: A Race to Own Local, Not Coupons?
I think we may be witnessing a race to see who can capture the consumer on his own time and his own turf — and his preferred context — with content (and deals) of specific interest to him a few moments before he realizes he wanted it. The daily deals are just a foot in the door to the broader hyperlocal market. Whatever territory and mindshare the likes of Patch have, Goup-Social wants. All this will be chewed on in my panel session at the Street Fight Summit tomorrow, October 25, with Jonty Kelt, CEO of Group Commerce, Chad Billmyer, CEO of Dealbird, and Perry Evans, CEO of Closely.
Jim Brady Reflects on WaPo, ‘Blown Up’ TBD and the Do or Die Future of Local
Combine digital community journalism and the New York Jets? Jim Brady might call that heaven. The longtime leader in online journalism and hyperlocal endeavors (though he avoids the term hyperlocal) seems to expend as much Twitter juice on the finer points of the team’s play as he does on crowdsourcing the news. But just barely. Fact is Brady is one of the most recognized editorial leaders in online news going back to washingtonpost.com (the first time … ya know, in the ’90s) then AOL, then Washington Post 2.0, next TBD and now the Journal Register Company. Before he gets picked up by the Jets as a mid-season PR QB, I thought it a good time to catch up…
Yelp Helps Local Restaurants Beat the Big Chains
Positive Yelp scores translate into real revenue boosts for local restaurants but not for chains. That’s the basic finding of a recent study by Michael Luca, a researcher at Harvard Business School. He found that a one-star differential in ratings on the popular crowd-sourced review site can bump revenues by 5% to 9% at a local restaurant. This is not entirely surprising. What is more interesting is that chain restaurants did not benefit from any significant increase in profitability or revenue corresponding to Yelp ratings…
In Jefferson’s Hometown, a Hyperlocal Focuses on Digital Democracy
Brian Wheeler is executive director of Charlottesville Tomorrow, a thriving nonprofit hyperlocal in Virginia that focuses on land use and other civic issues that are key to protecting the character of the community that was the home of Thomas Jefferson. We talked to Wheeler about his unusual definition of user engagement, and how he’s working to take it to a new level…
Indy Sites, Trusted Vanguards of Local Referral
There is a system in which people discover businesses that they love. It existed way before there was an Internet, and it’s also the foundation of local advertising. Patrons don’t want to go to sources they don’t trust, though — they want an honest and sincere referral because if an authority loves a place, they are more likely to love it too…
GPS for Groceries: Aisle411 Might Have the Right Ingredients
Sometimes when I enter a large space with the intention of performing a specific task I quickly lose all my energy and fall to the ground. For instance looking for a moon rock at the Air and Space Museum, or a particular gift item from a cacophonous mall: Down for the count. Looking for cumin at the […]
Beyond the Banner: Using Twitter Posts as Ad Updates
The publisher of CarsonNow.org has created an advertising system that uses Twitter to supply quick updates to ads. It takes the advertiser’s latest tweet and pairs it with a logo image, and displays it like a banner ad. The logo supplies the branding power, while the text of the tweet carries the advertising message…
At Chicago Summit, Local ‘Indies’ Get Down to Business
Last week’s Block by Block Community News Summit 2011 was a combination mirror and crystal ball where independent local publishers saw both what they have accomplished and what they need to do to ensure that what they created with their credit cards, sweat and tears would be around years from now…
Patch Pushback: Warren Webster Fires Back Amid Analysis and Criticism
Rick Robinson gets the lowdown from Patch’s president about why they’ve lost sales execs; the network’s plans to “stand on its own financially; and a reply to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong’s suggestion that Patch could possibly, at some point, be considered for a sale. He also comments on the HuffPo-Patch dynamic, neither confirming nor denying that Patch will merge editorial operations with HuffPo.
Freeing Retail Data Will Enable Innovation
If mobile commerce is to move ahead, the current closed structures around offline data will need to to change. Our society’s perceptions of what is acceptable private and public information have changed, and we will need a similar paradigm shift in retail and consumer commerce data provisioning…
How Is Citizen Journalism Playing Out Today?
Citizen journalism has propelled hundreds of hyperlocal news sites into existence. In the middle of the last decade, CitJ, particularly at the community level, was the hot topic in new media. Journalism’s thinkers saw it as a necessary and overdue reinvention of news (see Dan Gillmor, Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarvis, among others). So how is it actually playing out today — on the ground? To find out, I asked publishers and editors who have been part of the hyperlocal phenomenon.