Street Fight Daily: JRC Declares Bankruptcy, OpenTable’s Reviews
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Journal Register Co. Declares Bankruptcy… Again: Is This the Industry’s First Real Reboot? (Neiman Journalism Lab)… OpenTable’s hidden stash of restaurant reviews (Venture Beat)… Hyperlocal & Mobile Data Demystified (Media Post)…
Digital First Taps Nimble Commerce to Power National eCommerce
Digital First Media, which oversees the Denver-based MediaNews as well as the New York-based Journal Register Company, has inked a deal with Nimble Commerce to power an ecommerce initiative across the company’s 150 plus local sites. The deal will replace the media group’s largely fragmented ecommerce efforts with a single platform capable of launching daily deal and flash sales campaigns seamlessly across its media properties…
Street Fight Daily: 11.14.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
25% of American Adults Use Location-Based Services (ReadWriteWeb)… Journal Register’s John Paton: Newspapers’ Digital Apostle (New York Times)…
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…
Street Fight Daily: 09.09.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Zagat gives Google the best local content in one fell swoop, as well as relationships with thousands of local advertisers, writes Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry. “Now Google can plug the best local content into its many products and have the best local search product. … This is important because local is the next big online advertising opportunity. Daily deals are just the tip of the iceberg.” (Business Insider)…
“Local is going to be big; I think everyone realizes that,” says Sameet Sinha, a senior analyst at B. Riley. “But in this sort of capital markets environment, long-term projects aren’t given much leeway, especially a project like Patch that is much more people intensive than tech intensive.” It’s just “not something that should have been undertaken by a company the size of AOL.” (PEHub)…
Street Fight Daily: 09.08.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Echoecho is a simple service that lets people request location updates from friends in their phone address book, who then can decide whether to respond with their coordinates. The company announced yesterday that it has raised $750,000 in seed funding from Google Ventures and United Kingdom-based PROFounders Capital. (GigaOm)…
“It seems to me that Digital First is much more likely to solve the problem of building strong — and profitable — web-based local media than is AOL’s Patch,” writes Felix Salmon. “The first and most important reason is that local newspapers are, and always have been, the first best source of local ad-sales talent. … On the other side of the editorial divide, local newspapers are also the first best source of local news, and are generally much more respected and trusted in local communities than any cookie-cutter Patch site is likely to become.” (Reuters)…
Street Fight Daily: 08.16.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Foursquare has launched a new feature that allows users to create distinct lists of the places they’ve checked into or plan to visit in the future. This new functionality brings Foursquare more into the realm of user-generated recommendations long-dominated by review sites such as Yelp. (GigaOm)…
Miguel Ferrer, General Manager of AOL Latino says Patch Latino is set to be introduced this fall and is already hiring journalists in selected markets. “We are not yet commenting on the exact locations of the Patch Latino sites, but yes, they will be in Southern California.” (Portada)…
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…