Yik Yak Makes Inroads as a More Serious News Service
In its less than two years of existence, Yik Yak has spread across the country, mostly at communities centered around college campuses. It’s true that a lot of the company’s content is sophomoric. But I think that will change, based on a new pilot that the service has launched with the University of Florida…
Street Fight Daily: xAd Launches Blueprints, Square Buys Into Food Delivery
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… xAd Launches Blueprints To Track In-Store, Not Just Near-Store, Visits For Location Marketing (Marketing Land)… Square Acquires Fastbite To Add Cheap, Fast Meals To Caviar (TechCrunch)… Maps in iOS 8.3 Lets Business Owners Claim POIs, Removes Select TripAdvisor Reviews (Apple Insider)…
Street Fight Daily: Yahoo Spins Off Small Business, Groupon Founder’s New Startup
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yahoo To Spin Off Small Business Unit With Alibaba Stake (Quartz)… Groupon Founder’s New App Offers Awesome GPS Walking Tours (Wired)… Gannett: More Digital Acquisitions (NetNewsCheck)…
Holiday Shoppers Will Move Between Online and Offline More Than Ever Before
In two new studies, the Gannett-owned digital marketing company G/O Digital took a look at the capabilities and offerings that will drive shopper behavior during the holidays for national and smaller retailers respectively. According to one, 84% of online shoppers said they planned to use an online channel to help decide where to shop before purchasing a gift in store at a small business…
Gannett Papers Evolve to Avoid Becoming Publishing’s ‘Buggy Whips’
In the news media’s digitally focused 21st century, newspapers are often dismissed as an “industrial-age” product. But it’s not clear that they’ll become what whale oil was to the 19th century’s petroleum . For a macro-look at how this is playing out at Gannett, we caught up with the media giant’s SVP for News, Kate Marymont…
Street Fight Daily: Search’s Mobile Problem, Square Eyes Back-Office
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… First Half Ad Revenue: Search Dominates PC Ads But Not Mobile (Search Engine Land)… Square Testing New Payroll Product as Ambition Grows (Recode)… Gannett Earnings Strong, But Publishing Revenues Continue A Steep Slide (Poynter)…
How One Gannett Paper Is Reacting After ‘Slow Slide’ From Cost Cutting
In August of this year, the entire editorial staff at the Asheville Citizen-Times was required to apply for re-employment in a reorganization with new job descriptions. Executive Editor Josh Awtry told readers: “It would have been easier to change nothing in the way we operate … but we weren’t ready to accept that fate.” Here, Awtry details for Street Fight his team’s major changes…
Street Fight Daily: Gannett Buys Rest of Cars.com, Angie’s List Struggles
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…… Gannett Buys the Rest of Cars.com for $1.8 Billion (Businessweek)… Why Angie’s List Is In Trouble (Time)… PayPal Taps an Outsider to Push It Into a New Era (New York Times)…
Study: Facebook Is Most Effective Social Media Site for Small Business
A new study from G/O Digital, the digital marketing wing of Gannett, finds that consumers tend to use Facebook for product research more than any other social media outlet. The study found that 68% of respondents prefer checking reviews of Facebook, compared to 11% on Twitter and 12% on Pinterest.
Street Fight Daily: Shoppers Flee Stores, Gannett Splits Digital Business
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Shoppers Are Fleeing Physical Stores (Wall Street Journal)… Gannett To Split Print and Broadcast/Digital Divisions (New York Times)… Facebook’s New Video Ads Aren’t Ready for Small Businesses — Yet (Recode)…
Street Fight Daily: Gannett to Buy Rest of Cars.com, Square Adds Food Delivery
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Gannett Said Near Deal to Buy Rest of Cars.com for $1.8 Billion (New York Times)… As Competitors Close In, Square Moves Beyond the Credit Card (Wired)… Picking Through Google’s Pigeon Droppings (SearchEngineLand)…
Street Fight Daily: Google Plans Same-Day Delivery, Brands Eye App-Install Ads
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Inside Google’s Big Plan to Race Amazon To Your Door (Re/Code)… Matt Cutts, Google’s Head of Webspam, Is Going on Indefinite Leave — Publishers Likely Won’t Miss Him (PandoDaily)… Will Brand Dollars Ever Come to App-Install Ads? (AdAge)…
Hyperlocal M&A in 2014 — Here’s What the Big Acquirers Are Looking For
YP’s acquisition of Sense Networks earlier this week comes as M&A activity in the local technology continues to increase, with the market seeing the number of large, double digit deals increase in 2013. Here’s a quick look at several major players who may currently be in the hunt for locally focused acquisitions and what they might be looking for.
Street Fight Daily: Fake Yelp Reviews Rise, Yahoo Gives Maps A Facelift
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… A Whopping 20% Of Yelp Reviews Are Fake (MarketWatch)… Surprise: Yahoo Maps Gets A Facelift, New Features (SearchEngineLand)… Hyperlocal Power: Urban Compass Raises $20M At A $150M Valuation; Adds Advance Publications And Marc Benioff As Investors (TechCrunch)…
It’s Official: The Newspaper Industry Has Given Up on Newspapers
In the past couple of weeks, three of the major legacy media companies announced they were splitting their companies into separate-but-unequal broadcast and print ventures. The decisions by Gannett, E.W. Scripps and Tribune to divide their once “synergistic business models” into separate and very distinct businesses indicate that we are now at the beginning of the end-of-the-end for this industry…