Channeling Starbucks, FiveStars Seeks Loyalty in the Form of a Gift Card

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The Mountain View, Calif., company is launching a new gift card product aimed at helping businesses transform new customers into returning customers through its POS-integrated loyalty platform. The company has piloted a co-branded gift card with a handful of small retail chains since December, and plans to open the feature to its smaller merchants with the release…

Street Fight Daily: AOL’s MapQuest Buys Everlater, Groupon Hires COO Again

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.AOL’s MapQuest ‘Discovers’ Everlater (Seeking Alpha)… Groupon Tries Out Having a COO Again, Promotes Kal Raman (AllThingsD)… PayPal Tests QR Codes In Shop Windows; Mobile Check-Ins At Stores For Personalized Service (TechCrunch)…

Street Fight Daily: Pew Studies Local News, LevelUp White Labeled

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology. New Pew study: Where You Live Helps Shape Your News Diet (Nieman Journalism Lab)… LevelUp Arms Merchants With White Label Payment Apps (GigaOm)… Local Corp., a Web 1.0 Company, Thrusts Itself into Mobile Era with New iOS and Android Apps (Pando Daily)…

Case Study: Boston Tattoo Shop Uses Deals to Build Email Database

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At Stingray Body Art in Boston, events and promotions manager Adam Femino takes a more-is-more approach to hyperlocal marketing. In the past few years, Femino has used digital platforms like Groupon, LevelUp, and Privy to acquire new customers, promote brand awareness, and grow his company’s email database…

Street Fight Daily: Gannett Buys Loyalty Play, Payment Wars Heat Up

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Gannett Buys Mobile Consumer Rewards And Loyalty Platform, Key Ring (TechCrunch)… How LevelUp Plans To Win The Wallet Wars (Fast Company)… Daily Deals: Not Dead Yet (Inc.)…

PODCAST: This Week in Location-Based Marketing — Discover, LevelUp

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In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan discuss Twitter’s shut door on developers; everyone and their mother joins the In-Location Alliance; and Paypal jumps on the Discover bus. Plus the usual funding and M&A activity, our resource of the week and special guest Michael Hagan, COO LevelUp.

SFD: Groupon’s New App, Amazon Snubs Google Maps

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Groupon’s New App Hints At A Change In Course (Fast Company)… Amazon Teams with Nokia, Snubs Google for Maps (Reuters)… Facebook to Allow Targeting by Telephone Number? (Screenwerk)…

Street Fight Daily: FiveStars, LevelUp Raise Double-Digit Funding

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.FiveStars Picks Up $14 Million to Challenge the Loyalty Punch Card (All Things D)… LevelUp Now Has $21M To Take On The Squares Of The Mobile Payment World (TechCrunch)… Facebook Stories the Next Patch, Flipboard, HuffPo or Something Else? (Paid Content)…

Street Fight: LevelUp ‘Zeros Out,’ Andrew Mason Waits Tables

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.LevelUp’s Plan to Supercharge the Mobile Payments Market: Make It Free (All Things D)… The Education of Groupon CEO Andrew Mason (Businessweek)… LivingSocial Partners with Madison Square Garden, AEG and More for Live Event Offers (The Next Web)…

Mid-Year Analysis: The 5 Biggest Trends Driving Mobile, Local Media

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We’ve just passed the half-year mark and the mobile local space continues to move rapidly. Here are five major trends distilled from a couple of recent trade shows, and from my own examination of action in the space this year…

PODCAST: This Week in Location-Based Marketing — LevelUp, INRIX

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In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan look at the new version of Foursquare’s app and a round of funding for LevelUp. Google brings street view to the knapsack. Denny’s is giving away a lifetime of Grand Slams. Plus our top funding stories, our resource of the week and special guest Jim Bak, Director of Communications at INRIX…

LevelUp Adds $12 Million in New Funding

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SCVNGR’s mobile payments platform is getting another big boost. The maker of LevelUp, an app that links credit and debit cards to mobile phones, has announced that it has raised an additional $12 million from Highland Capital, Google Ventures, Balderton Capital, Continental Investors, and Transmedia Capital. The latter two companies are new investors…

#SFSW12: Next-Gen Loyalty — Mobile Payments vs. Credit Cards

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Traditional paper punchcards are on their way toward extinction, but leaders from top loyalty companies weren’t in complete agreement over which platforms are best positioned to capitalize on the changing tide during a morning panel discussion at Street Fight Summit West on Tuesday…

Street Fight Brings Popular Summit to San Francisco!

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On June 5, hyperlocal’s brightest minds will converge on the Bently Reserve in downtown San Francisco for Street Fight Summit West, the first West Coast conference produced by Street Fight. Confirmed speakers and attendees include some of the top thinkers in hyperlocal. Early bird tickets are available at a 50% discount for a limited time…

Leonsis: New Local Opportunity ‘Where Social, Video and Mobile Intersect’

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In a video interview with BIA/Kelsey, online pioneer, Groupon Vice Chair and ILM East Keynoter noted: “It is a much bigger idea than a simple directory or city guide or newspaper.” The next marketplaces are for “socially astute audiences,” he said…

6 Mobile Payments Platforms for Merchants

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Only 4% of merchants currently accept mobile payments, according to a study by Javelin Strategy & Research, however 20% say they intend to adopt this technology within the next 12 months. Given that mobile payments are still in their infancy, and the landscape is still wide open, several players are vying for market dominance. It’s hard to say yet whether one will be a clear winner, or, as with cell phones and credit cards themselves, there will be a handful of leading options.

Using LevelUp To Build Brand Loyalty

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Forget the paper punch cards and plastic key fobs that most people associate with small business rewards programs. In an effort to grab the attention of customers and promote true brand loyalty, today’s SMBs are looking for digital alternatives. LevelUp, the mobile-payments-meets-loyalty program, has quickly become the frontrunner in this race…

Street Fight Daily: 03.02.12

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

LivingSocial to Launch Its First Credit Card (Reuters)…

How LevelUp Is Taking a Page From Starbucks (GigaOm)…

10 Things to Know About Location Right Now (Ad Age)…

Case Study: Food Truck Says Single Deal Campaign Saturated Market

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Kate Carrara, owner of Buttercream, a cupcake truck in Philadelphia, tapped into the daily deals craze in 2011 with campaigns through both Groupon and LivingSocial — which she’ll never do again. “I think I’ve saturated the market with it. I did it solely for the marketing,” she says, pointing to the 9,000 Twitter followers accumulated after the Groupon deal. Since then, she’s also used Xipwire and LevelUp to combine hyperlocal marketing and commerce, two experiments with open outcomes…

Street Fight Daily: 03.01.12

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

LevelUp Now Seeing $1M Per Month In Transactions; Launches API (TechCrunch)…

Facebook Premium: Ads Everywhere, Ads Everywhere, Ads (BetaBeat)…

Foursquare Dumps Google, Goes Open-Source for Maps (ReadWriteWeb)…