After Fits and Starts, Collaborative News Is Finally Making Headlines
For years, there’s been a lot of earnest talk about digital news sites collaborating to produce editorial content that had more value for users — and to help the collaborators make their often-precarious operations sustainable. But the talk produced as many fits as starts. That’s changing, and for the better.
How Jim Brady’s Billy Penn Tailors News to Philly’s Millennials
BillyPennDigital local news pioneer Jim Brady launched mobile-focused Billy Penn in Philadelphia a month ago. Brady, joined by other Billy Penn staffers, talked with Street Fight recently about what the site is doing to stand out in a major metro market that has more than 70 websites covering local news…
VIDEO: Hyperlocal Media 2.0 — Events and Email?
The sale of AOL’s local media network, Patch, earlier this year marked something of an end to a lot of the optimism that once surrounded hyperlocal media. As local media veteran Jim Brady says, the category entered the “huddle for warmth” phase of its lifecycle. But a more optimistic tone has begun to return to the industry…
How Community Involvement Can Pay Off for Local Publishers
Commuter traffic tie-ups and convenience store holdups can’t be the heart of a community news product. “Duty” coverage is still part of many sites’ content menu, but, by itself, it can’t build a solid relationship with community. The trick is to empower users “to take action to improve their communities”…
Street Fight Daily: Investors Cash Out of Payments, Airbnb’s New Logo
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Investors Cash Out Of Payment Technology Startups (TechCrunch)… Airbnb Unveils a Major Rebranding Effort That Paves the Way for Sharing More Homes (FastCompany)… Google AdWords Express App Aims to Boost SMB Self-Service (Screenwerk)…
Street Fight Daily: GoDaddy Gets Into Mobile Payments, Pandora’s Local Revenue
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Get Paid: GoDaddy Links With PayPal, Dwolla, Stripe For A Mobile & Web Payment Service (TechCrunch)… Pandora: More Than Half Our Revs Will Be Local In A Few Years (Marketing Land)… Taking Another Plunge into Digital News (USA Today)…
Street Fight: Uber Raises $1.2B, Apple Acquires Local Search Engine
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Gets an Uber-Valuation (Wall Street Journal)… Apple Acquires Spotsetter, A Social Search Engine For Places (TechCrunch)… Jim Brady Plans News Org in Philly Called Brother.ly (Poynter)…
After AOL’s Hyperlocal Fail, Media Watchers Pin Hopes on Smaller Operations
With a number of once-promising large-scale hyperlocal media projects laying in ruin, local media’s star has faded a bit over the past year, causing many industry watchers to frame local journalism as a pursuit defined by a social need, and burdened by an unfriendly market reality. The vision of the $150 billion market opportunity has been replaced with a social ethic — the need for small, independent operations to create self-sufficient clusters in their communities…
Brady on Thunderdome: The Glue at the Core Was Never Able to Dry
“The local digital news solution is probably going to come from new players rather than legacy ones,” says outgoing Digital First Media editor-in-chief Jim Brady. “It’s extremely hard to try and create that next-generation local news product while you’re dealing with the rapid decline of your core business. … Somewhere in that broad swath of experimentation are all the pieces for a successful model. It’s just a matter of time until someone finds the right mix.”
Street Fight Daily: Reddit Targets Locations, Facebook’s Billion Mobile Users
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.. Reddit Introduces Location-Targeted Promoted Posts (Wall Street Journal)… Facebook Posts Earnings Beat as Mobile Soars Past One Billion Monthly Users (Recode)… Uber Drives for Asian Expansion (Financial Times)…
Street FIght Daily: Shopkick Hits Profitability, Groupon Expands Reporting
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Shopkick Says It’s Now Profitable, With Its Shopping App Adding $200M In Sales For Target, Best Buy And Others In 2012 (TechCrunch)… Groupon Unveils Merchant Impact Report, a Free Service So Merchants Can Justify Their Deal Performance (The Next Web)… AOL’s Patch to Go From Lousy Local News Network to Even Worse Community Message Board network (PandoDaily)…
Street Fight Daily: DNAinfo Preps Expansion, Google Rethinks Local Discovery
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Joe Ricketts ready to launch DNAinfo in Chicago (Chicago Business Journal)… A New Google App Gives You Local Information — Before You Ask for It (New York Times)… Amazon Could Be Working On A Square Competitor (TechCrunch)…
Street Fight’s 5 Most Popular Stories From the First Half of 2012
The first six months of 2012 have brought a lot of interesting developments in the world of Street Fight — from the publication of our first research report, to our second major industry conference, to the launch of our monthly Hyperlocal Investment Report newsletter and our new job listings board. With the first half of the year in the bag, here’s a look back at the top Street Fight stories (at least in terms of traffic) so far this year…
Local Quotables: Steve Buttry, Jeff DeBalko, Eric Friedman and more…
The best words about and around the hyperlocal industry. At the Street Fight Summit, the quote of the event came from Datasphere’s Gary Cowan. Elsewhere, John Byers cautioned on the long-term repercussions of working with Groupon and Yipit’s David Sinsky had some serious analysis on the company. Meanwhile, Journal Register’s Jim Brady and Steve Buttry both […]
Brady: If Print Is 85% of Your Revenue, You’re Terrible at Selling Digital
Six months ago, online news guru Jim Brady (formerly of TBD and washingtonpost.com) took over as editor-in-chief at Digital First Media with the mandate of focusing the newsrooms of the company’s papers on a, well, “digital first” model. Street Fight recently caught up with Brady, to talk about what it takes to win hearts and minds of veteran journalists, and why the business side comes first…