New Borrell SMB Report: ‘The Deer Have the Guns’
The 903 small business owners surveyed in a new study from Borrell Associates said they expected to spend only 12% of their digital advertising budgets in 2013 on banner advertising, sponsorships, and classifieds. Meanwhile they expected to spend more than half of their marketing budgets on owned channels, investing heavily in managing their website (35%), running email marketing campaigns (13%), and social media (14)%.
Street Fight Daily: Google Retires Latitude, Life360 Raises $10M
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology….Google Is Retiring Its Latitude Location-Sharing Service (TheNextWeb)… Family App Life360 Raises $10 million Series B Round For Growth, International Expansion (GigaOm)… Belo Is Now Worth More Than Gannett Is Paying (Bloomberg)…
Street Fight Daily: Waze Talks Collapse, Wikipedia Launches ‘Nearby’
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Facebook Acquisition Talks With Waze Fall Apart (AllThingsD)… Wikipedia Debuts ‘Nearby’ Feature to Find Pages Around You (VentureBeat)… As Software Trumps Hardware In The World Of Payments, VeriFone Partners With CardSpring For Card-Linked Services (TechCrunch)…
Borrell: Promotions Will Dominate Local Media Ad Spend in 2013
Local advertisers are set to spend 81% more on promotions than media-based advertising this year, according to a new study by Borrell Associates. The report forecasts that growth in digital promotions will outpace digital advertising by 65% over the next four years, jumping from $32.2 billion in 2012 to over $80 billion in 2017…

Local Media’s Data-Driven Future
New value creation is the purpose of media companies today, whether small or big. I genuinely feel sorry for those who believe there is a future in practicing content creation alone. Last week, I called for a strategic makeover. We need a new strategic plan that positions us as more than “just” a media company and behind which our employees can throw their energy. So here are ten things that I view as tactically supporting such a strategy…