Street Fight Daily: Foursquare Taps Expertise, SEOs Weigh ‘Pigeon’
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Foursquare’s Redesign Will Make Expertise the New Gamification (Pando)… Experts Weigh In On Google’s “Pigeon” Update Aimed At Improving Local Search Results (SearchEngineLand)… San Francisco Airport Tests Beacon Sensors to Guide Blind Travelers (Mashable)…
As Paywalls Evolve, So Does the Perception of Paywalls
It’s time to acknowledge that, overall, people are starting to get used to paying for content online — especially on smartphones and tablets. It will be interesting to see how the various paywall models play out over time, but I have become more confident that paywalls (in some form or fashion) are a piece of the puzzle to running a profitable hyperlocal or regional news website…
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…
Street Fight Daily: NYT Ends ‘Local’ Experiment, Patch Pressure
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… ‘Times’ Will End Partnerships with N.Y.U., CUNY on Hyperlocal Blogs (Capital New York)… Patch Puts Pressure on Local Editors (Romenesko) … Groupon China Venture To Merge With Tencent-Backed FTuan (Bloomberg)…
J-Students Go Local: Inside NYU’s East Village Hyperlocal Site
As editor of The Local’s East Village blog, Daniel Maurer teaches his students about community reporting in the streets around their campus — letting them wet their feet online, and sometimes get picked up by the Times. The site is fully funded, but part of Maurer’s mission is also to remake the site into a viable business by bulking up restaurant coverage and other service features, setting the groundwork for ad sales, and potentially planning a neighborhood events series…
Street Fight Daily: 10.31.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Gilt City Picks Up BuyWithMe at a Discount (AllThingsD)
The daily deals site operated by fashion and luxury online retailer Gilt Groupe, has acquired daily deals company BuyWithMe. Gilt will be purchasing BuyWithMe’s assets, including its member and vendor lists, as well as some of its technology…
Cachet, Not Cash Fuels NYT’s Local Team-Ups (NetNewsCheck)
The New York Times’ local partnerships with the Bay Citizen, the Texas Tribune and the Chicago News Cooperative have been a boon to the legitimacy nonprofit sites and their missions to raise the level of local journalism in their markets. But some acknowledge that weighing the Times’ needs against their own can be a challenge…
Street Fight Daily: 08.31.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
“The golden age of daily deals, led by the unprecedented growth of Groupon, seems to be coming to its end,” writes Ben Parr. “That’s not to say daily deals won’t be sticking around for a long time — clearly there is a business in it — but when two major players withdraw from the space and its biggest player experiences a 50% traffic decline, it’s a clear sign that the daily deals market is no longer in its heyday.” (Mashable)…
A little over a year after Gannett and Yahoo teamed up on local ads sales primarily for the publisher’s 81 community newspapers, the two are extending their partnership to include all of Gannett’s 19 local TV stations. (PaidContent)…
How Press Association Ad Networks Can Help Newspapers Compete Online
One would think that the Internet would help ad networks from state press and newspaper associations operate with even greater efficiency, but these groups are only in the early stages online. Still they are well-positioned to help increase CPMs and provide a way for newspapers to ensure that their ad inventory is always sold at a set value…