Case Study: Using Mobile Tools to Track Coupon Redemptions

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Oklahoma Premier Carriage Company owner Clint Parker has run daily deal offers with all the major players – from Groupon and LivingSocial, to smaller companies like Wimgo Deals. He says that new mobile scanning apps are making it possible for his employees to track voucher redemptions while working in the field, which has led to fewer instances of fraud and bigger tips from satisfied customers…

Street Fight Daily: 07.12.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...

Foursquare hopes to ease its revenue problem with a series of pacts to remarket daily coupon deals from LivingSocial, Gilt Groupe and AT&T Inc. to its 10 million users. A similar deal with Groupon is also said to be in the works. (WSJ)…

Groupon made updates to its terms of service and privacy statement last weekend to reflect new ways the company collects and shares user data. Now if users opt to share their location data through Groupon Now, the company will track user location and be able to share it with several sources. (ReadWriteWeb)…

Street Fight Daily: 07.08.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...

Is Groupon’s idiosyncratic CEO, Andrew Mason — an accordion-playing, ever paranoid prankster — ready to move his company forward and fight off a horde of copycats? (Vanity Fair)…

Newspaper sites like Boston.com have begun to integrate SeeClickFix, a hyperlocal civic action plug-in that allows users to click on a map, report issues in their neighborhoods, and comment on reports made by others. (Poynter)…

Case Study: Struggling to Turn Deal Chasers Into Repeat Clients

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When it comes to running daily deal promotions, Maria Camacho is far from a newbie. In the past few years, the owner of The Little Yoga Studio in San Diego, California, has run deals with a handful of different group coupon companies. She says the low-paying group coupons are worth it to her as long as two or three of every 100 daily deal customers become repeat clients.

Street Fight Daily: 07.07.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.

Groupon’s S-1 filing for an IPO last month certainly got a lot of negative ink. Rattled by the intense media and analyst reaction to the filing, sources said the Chicago-based company commissioned a poll of its consumers and merchants to gauge the impact. (AllThingsD)…

Two weeks ago, Foursquare announced that there were over 10,000,000 people using the service. Now the company has announced that it has over half a million merchants signed up as well. (Foursquare Blog)…

Street Fight Daily: 07.05.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...

“Instead of telling small businesses to avoid daily deals, how about trying to understand why some small businesses are having success?” writes Vinicius Vacanti. “With that understanding, we could then educate other small businesses on how they might be able to replicate that success themselves.” (TechCrunch)…

“While location advertising may not be new, marketers can now digitally localize their ads,” writes David Staas. “The question is, how do brands win in this new world of location media?” (Mashable)…

Yelp: Going Mobile

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Yelp is wisely leveraging one of its major strengths–its mobile popularity–to get up in Groupon’s grill. Yelp users regularly use its mobile features to decide where to eat, drink and shop when they’re out and about. Now they get instant info on nearby Yelp Deals as well, which should help boost sales and give the company more leverage with its local vendors…

Street Fight Daily: 07.01.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...

It is still not too late for Groupon to get back on track and succeed in China if they can implement the right strategies with focus and speed, writes Helen Wang. Someone has to change the game. (Forbes)…

Ever wonder what Groupon’s all-time, best-selling promotion was? Research conducted by data scientist Paul Butler reveals just that. (Huffington Post)…

Case Study: Santa Fe Sports Shop Scores Big With Groupon

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When Santa Fe Mountain Sports owner Dan McCarthy first got a call from Groupon, he wasn’t sure what to expect. Despite some initial trepidation, McCarthy was able to craft a deal that cost him very little and was purchased almost exclusively by new customers. All things considered, he says Groupon deals are the cheapest way he’s found to get new people through the front door at his shop.

Street Fight Daily: 06.30.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups... The next phase of growth for local deals will be mobile. Groupon knows this, and so does Yelp, which is rolling out Yelp Deals to its iPhone and Android apps. (TechCrunch)… Groupon competitor LivingSocial met with bankers this week to discuss a $1 billion public offering. The IPO could value LivingSocial, which expects to generate $1 billion in revenue this year, at $10 billion to $15 billion. (Paid Content)…

Street Fight Daily: 06.29.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...

A few months after being named COO of the Huffington Post Media Group, Jon Brod’s responsibilities are being narrowed to focus on running AOL’s Patch network of hyperlocal sites. Brod co-founded Patch with Tim Armstrong and was CEO when it was acquired in 2009. (Paid Content)…

Location-based service advertising will grow to over one-third of all mobile advertising in four years. By 2015, location-based advertising will be $6.2 billion, according to Pyramid Research. (MediaPost)…

Street Fight Daily: 06.28.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...

“How can LivingSocial beat a better-funded competitor with more name recognition who has a 22-country head start on them?” asks Sarah Lacy. “Ironically by moving more slowly, throwing around less cash and being smarter with local hires, not pricey consultants and MBAs.” (TechCrunch)…

“You can’t just jump into a crowded local news market with a product that’s about as good as the existing ones,” writes Erik Wemple. “Even marginally better won’t get the job done. It’s got to be so much better that you can eat the lunch of legacy outlets.” (Washington Post)…

TIPPR: Quality of Audience Is What Matters in the Deals Space

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In the wake of Groupon’s recent S1 and the subsequent wave of criticism that has been aimed at the daily deals giant, deals platform and technology providers like Tippr are stepping in to the fray with new models to power group buying. Street Fight caught up with Tippr’s COO Samy Aboel-Nil at DIGIDAY: LOCAL last week to discuss how the company’s Powered by Tippr is hoping to change the game…

Street Fight Daily: 06.24.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups…

In the automotive space, the responsibility for advertising is shifting from car makers to car dealers, and that means significant boost for local media, especially online, according to a report looking at the auto category from Borrell Associates. Online is pulling ad spending from car companies and dealers at a more accelerated rate, and display is likely to remain a key beneficiary. (Paid Content)…

In the quest for a unified database of places, geo-location startup Factual is making big strides. Yesterday it announced a partnership with SimpleGeo to maintain and power its places database, which up until now has offered a competing database of places in the eyes of developers. (TechCrunch)…

Case Study: How a Nashville Salon Retains Daily Deal Customers

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Julie Marler is the owner of J. Bangs Salon, a hairstyling studio in Nashville that has had great success running deals with Groupon and LivingSocial. Marler estimates that she’s retained 50% of her daily deal customers by preparing her staff ahead of time and increasing stylists in the weeks following each deal…

Google Offers: Not a ‘Groupon Killer’ (But Still Pretty Killer)

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It’s been widely reported over the past few weeks that Google has launched a deals platform known as Offers. But most of this coverage has missed the point — falling into the tired but pervasive trope of “[insertnamehere] Killer” claims (in this case, Groupon). Offers will be similar to Groupon in some ways, but its economics and mobile integration are quite different. Comparisons aside, the real story is how Offers plugs into Google’s massive distribution network of search, Gmail, mobile and about 26 other products.

Street Fight Daily: 06.20.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startupsWhile LivingSocial may indeed have future plans for an IPO, the recent rumor was obviously kicked out there in an attempt to create some buzz. (Daily Deal Media)… Last week came a report of a scathing review from a Scvngr client, Vintank. The small agency felt that the mobile checkin company did a terrible job with its campaign and broke a lot of promises. Scvngr’s founder and CEO, Seth Priebatsch responded Friday with his version of the story. According to Priebatsch, some of the blame was Scvngr’s, but much of it falls on Vintank. (Business Insider)…

Street Fight Daily: 06.17.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.… eBay is beefing up its mobile arsenal with its first local shopping app, powered by the local shopping search engine that eBay acquired in June, Milo. (Mashable)…

AOL chief Tim Armstrong said yesterday that “certain” Patch outlets — there are 800 and counting — should be profitable by Q3 or Q4, though he didn’t offer specifics. (Paid Content)…

Street Fight Daily: 06.16.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...

In explaining the relevance of its new product, Geotagger, Fwix says that “LatLong” — latitude and longitude — is going to replace keywords as the standard for online ad buys, as daily deals and mobile usage become a greater part of publishers’ traffic and revenue streams. (PaidContent)…

While Groupon may want to move its IPO forward quickly, to capitalize on the enthusiasm generated by a new wave of Internet-related stock debuts, it will likely have to wait until late summer, or possibly the fall, for its stock to be priced and trading publicly. (Marketwatch)…

Street Fight Daily: 06.15.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.

According to a Rice University study, most businesses don’t feel any loyalty toward a particular daily deal site, and over the next few years daily deal sites will likely “have to settle for lower shares of revenues from businesses compared to their current levels, and it will be harder and more expensive for them to find viable candidates to fill their pipelines of daily deals.” (PaidContent)…

Groupon Inc. Vice Chairman Ted Leonsis’ venture firm is an investor in rival LivingSocial and has ties to its board, a relationship that could pose a conflict, according to corporate-governance experts. (Bloomberg)…