As Social Media Hype Wanes, Appeal of Hyperlocal Remains
While social media is here to stay, the market shares a lot more with the online advertising segment than, say, the SaaS subscription business. Social media is only as sticky as its user base and only as attractive as it is fresh. I am sure that there are real benefits to tapping a social graph for sales. But I am becoming more sure that those benefits are incremental and evolutionary, rather than a step change…
Street Fight Daily: Groupon Staff Strained, Foursquare ‘Nearby Friends’ Back
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology... Groupon Staff Feel the Heat (Wall Street Journal)… ‘Nearby Friends’ Feature Returns to Foursquare (PC Mag)… St. Paul Daily Puts Engagement On Wheels (NetNewsCheck)…
Street Fight Daily: Gilt City Names New Head, Facebook Courts SMBs
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Sarah Chubb, Former President Of Conde Nast Digital, Is Now President Of Gilt City (SAI)… Facebook Courts Small Business Dollars With Easy Social Ad Campaign Creation (TechCrunch)… Reid Hoffman: Groupon Made Multiple Missteps While Going Public (PandoDaily)…
Case Study: Hotel Boosts Business, Cuts Costs With Facebook Contests
In December 2011, hotelier Ronan McAuley decided to forego traditional advertising and focus his resources on social media. He now uses Offerpop to run competitions and promotions on his hotel’s Facebook page — business is already up 18%, while his marketing costs are only 20% of what they once were…
Street Fight Daily: Yahoo Exec to Foursquare, Facebook ‘Likes’ Local
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Foursquare Snags a Yahoo Exec to Serve as VP of Sales (Venture Beat)… Facebook Prompts Users to Like Pages They Check-in to; Could It Foreshadow a New Location-based Ad Type? (Inside Facebook)… Nielsen On U.S. Mobile Shopping: eBay’s App Attracts The Most Users, Shopkick Keeps Them Around Longer (TechCrunch)…
Startups Compete to Connect Neighbors — But Beware the ‘Empty Room’
A number of new hyperlocal apps have popped up recently to facilitate neighbors’ conversations with one other, but I see three major hurdles to the adoption of these localized services. Local networks require critical mass, they require ringleaders, and they require neighbors who are willing to share online with people near enough to stalk them…
Street Fight Daily: Google Buys Wildfire, DNA Info’s Billionaire Boss
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Google Buys Wildfire: Social/Loyalty Anchor? (Local Onliner)… Inside Billionaire Joe Ricketts Dreams of a Media Empire (Capital New York)… Craigslist Now Wants Your Postings Under ‘Exclusive’ Terms: Padmapper Fallout Continues (TechCrunch)…
LBS Marketing Spotlight: Golf Courses
Golfers’ cries for gadgets are making headway, and what’s more they offer a built-in opportunity for course owner/operators to make mobile and location-based services an integral part of their marketing mix. An LBS approach can help to increase loyalty, engage more golfers and appeal to their love of the game by connecting with them and the tools their already using…
Twitter Loses Significant Local Audience in Cutting Off LinkedIn
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…
PODCAST: This Week in Location-Based Marketing — Apple, Facebook, Yelp
In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan look at what the iOS maps and Yelp integration means for Apple; Facebook’s “Friends Near By” folly; Yammer winning the Microsoft lottery; and are smartphones helping in-store sales? Plus special guest Holger Leudorf of Foursquare talks about find vs. search…
Are QR Codes Here to Stay?
From a hyperlocal perspective, QR codes can be a powerful tool. It’s important to consider them as an engagement vehicle to drive traffic to your local destination, whatever that may be. Local store, local event, doctor’s office or coffee shop — they can be leveraged to increase footfall and ultimately revenue…
Street Fight Daily: Yelp Featured, Facebook Pulls Location-Aware App
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.…
Apple To Feature Yelp Check-Ins Within IPhone Maps App (Bloomberg)…
You Won’t Find Friends Nearby Anymore: Facebook Pulls Its Location-Aware Mobile App To Add New Friends (TechCrunch)…
An NJ Hyperlocal Net to Rival Patch, Literally (NetNewsCheck)…
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Highlights, Google Loosens
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.…
‘Find Friends Nearby’: Facebook’s New Mobile Feature For Finding People Around You… (TechCrunch)…Google loosens its limits and pricing on Maps API (Nieman Journalism Lab)… The High Value of Discount Prices (WSJ)… Google’s Maps And Commerce Group Is In A CRAZY Level Of Disarray (SAI)
Street Fight Daily: Living Social Flush, AOL at Juncture
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.…
LivingSocial Steers Clear of IPO (WSJ)…SOURCE: AOL Faces Brutal Choice On Patch — Close It Or Double Down (SAI)…TripAdvisor Relaunches Local Picks Facebook App, for Restaurant Tips from Friends and Locals (The Next Web)
Facebook and the Latent Local Layer
If Facebook were to really turn its attention to local, it could do some amazing things. Imagine if all of our posts and check-ins related to local restaurants were correlated together in a meaningful way. There’s little doubt Facebook could recommend the new place down the street based on your preferences and those of others similar to you, with a high likelihood of successfully predicting what you will like…