Street Fight Daily: 09.20.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Amazon Local, the e-retail giant’s recently launched daily deals initiative, apparently does not count the space’s no. 2 player — LivingSocial — as a true competitor. LivingSocial, which received $175 million in funding from Amazon last December, is selling the majority of the ads for Amazon Local — a platform that’s been dramatically expanded in the last seven weeks and now appears in 44 markets. (Clickz)…
Success breeds nothing if not copycats, and few industries have seen more imitators in the last 12 months than the daily deals space. But companies looking for hefty exits might be sobered by a new report on the deals space that notes the price of acquisitions has been plummeting. (Fast Company)…
Street Fight Daily: 09.15.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Groupon is planning to put its initial public offering back on track even as markets remain rocky. After postponing presentations to potential investors early this month, the online coupon giant is now aiming to go public in late October or early November, according to people briefed on the matter. (New York Times/Dealbook)…
Foursquare’s magical tool that will allow developers to build apps that can remind you to buy milk when you walk past the grocery store or notify you when a friend is in the area is being publicly released. (BetaBeat)…
Street Fight Daily: 09.02.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
While Yelp’s daily deal segment got off to a strong start, things have been getting worse ever since. So, what happened? Over the last 6 months, Yelp has been generating less and less revenue per deal as competition in the space heated up. (Yipit Blog)…
The Washington Post has decided to let the leases lapse on all but two of its local bureaus. Beginning next year, the Post has decided to end the leases on four offices in Virginia and three offices in Maryland. (Politico)…
Street Fight Daily: 08.30.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Local reviews network Yelp is preparing to cut staff and “scale back” its one-year-old Yelp Deals service. About 15 sales staff currently working on the Deals service are getting redeployed to other parts of the organization; another 15 will remain working on the service, and the number of offers sent to users is “unlikely to grow.” (PaidContent)…
By 2015, small and medium-sized businesses will spend only 30% of their marketing budgets on traditional media with the rest going to digital and online media, according to BIA/Kelsey. (NetNewsCheck)…
Street Fight Daily: 08.15.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
AOL is spending about $150,000 to run each individual Patch site annually, according to an analyst’s estimate. AOL first focused on building traffic to Patch sites, and just recently started ramping up ad sales. (Wall Street Journal)…
San Francisco’s KQED is embarking on a couple of partnerships pairing it with hyperlocal sites in the area: one with just-launched Huffington Post San Francisco, the other with four hyperlocal news sites as part of J-Lab’s Networked Journalism Project. (Nieman Lab)…
Street Fight Daily: 08.09.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Bloomspot has secured $40 million in new funding. The company focuses on offers from high-quality merchants looking to connect with their best customers and deepen loyalty. The offers they serve are highly tailored for specific interests and demographics. (TechCrunch)…
In its quarterly earnings report, AOL said that Patch has added 44 towns to end Q2 in 846 towns and is on track to have about a 1,000 coverage areas by year’s end. (PaidContent)…
Street Fight Daily: 08.05.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
“Location is no longer a service like maps or navigation, but increasingly an enabler of new product experiences,” writes Forrester’s Thomas Husson. “In a nutshell, the very notion of location-based services doesn’t not mean much anymore.” (Moco News)…
Mayorships, stickers, badges — these are the rewards new mobile apps confer on us for supplying them with the data of our daily activities. But there’s one potential stumbling block which could stop this gamification going global: the rest of the world might not be as competition-crazy as Americans are. (PaidContent)…
Street Fight Daily: 08.04.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Location-based media company JiWire reports seeing increases in the sharing of and the demand for local deals, like those offered by Groupon, LivingSocial and others, since last quarter. According to data from a recent survey, sharing of deals has increased by 21% and demand is up 20% from Q1 2011. (ReadWriteWeb)…
LivingSocial’s Groupon Now-killer, LivingSocial Instant, appears to now have an ad unit that promotes specific deals. This adds a new layer to how daily deals can be promoted or sold. (Business Insider)…
Street Fight Daily: 08.03.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Foursquare has launched an update that allows anyone to sign up for a brand page that can push tips and check-ins to followers on Foursquare, as well as to Facebook and Twitter. Users had already been able to add new locations to the service, but, until yesterday, there was no good way for most places to actively reach out to users. (ReadWriteWeb)…
Despite the regular carping from pundits on the sidelines, LivingSocial believes it can show that daily deals are a good deal for businesses, and thus a sustainable long term industry. The company has released the results of a recent survey to bolster its argument. (Business Insider)…
Street Fight Daily: 08.02.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Google has snapped up The Dealmap, an aggregator of nearby shopping deals, in an acquisition that furthers its Google Offers ambitions. The purchase, whose price was not disclosed, shows that Google is proceeding even without its unsuccessful $6 billion bid for Groupon last year. (GigaOm)…
The original Yankee Stadium was demolished in 2010, but some of the seats have survived and are now being used in a novel Facebook Places campaign for MasterCard that uses QR codes to establish location. (Mashable)…
Why Local Media Can Dominate Daily Deals
Pundits have been quick to predict the demise of daily deals following the recent news that Facebook and Yelp have scaled back their entries into the market, and that Groupon has delayed its IPO. Rather than buy into this hype, local media need to view this moment as an opportunity to double down and consolidate their positions to capitalize on this important new revenue stream…