5 Can’t-Miss SXSWi Panels for the Local-Obsessed
The annual SXSW Interactive Festival starts tomorrow and runs through Tuesday. With five days packed with a wide range of panels and presentations, the confab can be thrilling and overwhelming at the same time. Here are five sessions focused on the future of local and social that Street Fight readers will be especially interested in…
Street Fight Daily: Groupon to Stick with Model, Retailigence Nabs $6.3M
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Groupon CFO: No Changes to Business Model (Wall Street Journal)… Local Search Update for Google Maps iOS Could Hurt Yelp (Venture Beat)… Retailigence Bags $6.3M for Online-to-Offline Marketing (Vator News)…
Conference Notebook: Rethinking the Local ‘User Experience’
After four years of slowed growth, local advertising spend has finally rebounded to pre-2008 levels with digital revenues up 31% in 2012. Speaking at the Local Online Advertising Conference in New York Monday, Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates, said that local online marketing spend will reach $24.5 billion by 2016, driven largely by growth in non-advertising marketing services…
Openings & New Hires at Retailigence, Square, Patch, PayPal and more…
PubMatic keeps up a hiring spree; the Keith Rabois is-he-or-isn’t-he saga is over, but he’s not the only Square loss; Retailigence has a LOT of jobs on offer; and things are a-changing’ at YP. Plus, former Martha Stewart Omnimedia doyenne Susan Lyne leaves her post in hyperlocal before she even really got started And if you’re working in sales, you won’t want to skip this lineup of listings…
Street Fight Daily: Selling Main Street, Mobile Payments Ease Cash Flow
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… The Newsonomics of Selling Main Street (Nieman Lab)… Payments Brighten Cash Flow for Small Business (Wall Street Journal)… The Real Reason Why Google Is Dropping The Tablet vs. Desktop Distinction? It’s The User Context, Stupid! (Search Engine Land)…
Andrew Mason Out as Groupon CEO
Groupon CEO Andrew Mason was fired by the company’s board Thursday, less than 24 hours after dismal earnings sent the company’s stock price into a tailspin. The board is currently looking for a replacement, and board members Eric Lefkofsky and Ted Leonisis will serve as co-CEOs of the company until one is found…
Report: Blocking Access to Wi-Fi Could Hurt Retailers
Wi-fi connectivity may be starting to affect where consumers decide to shop, according to a new report by JiWire. The study, which surveyed users across the company’s ad-supported wi-fi network, found that one out of two mobile consumers are influenced by the availability of in-store wi-fi when deciding where to shop…
With Mobile Growing, WPP Sees Opportunity to Make DOOH Smarter
The agency’s Spafax Networks has announced a new partnership that will bring PlaceIQ’s audience data to its DOOH buying process. Like PlaceIQ’s channel partners in the mobile space, Spafax can use the latitude-longitude data associated with its inventory to target media by audience segments like “middle aged moms” or “business travelers” in vendor and geography.
LocalVox Turns to SMB Seminars to Drive Leads in New Markets
New York-based LocalVox is expanding from New York and Boston to Washington D.C. The move is a small-but-significant step in the company’s grand plan to replace legacy players like ReachLocal as the marketing platform of choice for local businesses. LocalVox’s product allows small business to publish content across their own email, social, and web properties, as well as to a host of listing sites and other media properties from a single touchpoint…
Street Fight Daily: Samsung’s ‘Passbook’ App, PayPal Co-Founder’s Payments Play
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Samsung Takes a Page from Apple’s Passbook With New Wallet App (Verge)… PayPal Co-Founder Levchin Launches New Payments Startup, Affirm (AllThingsD)… Apple Patents Situational Awareness And Location Information Sharing For Mobile Devices (TechCrunch)…
Street Fight Daily: Foursquare Expands Deals, Visa Teams with Samsung
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Foursquare Opens Up Check-In Deals to More Kinds of Plastic (AllThingsD)… Visa Teams Up With Samsung on Mobile Payments (New York Times)… With ClubLocal and New SaaS Tools, ReachLocal Wants to be the Amazon of Local services (PandoDaily)…
Voice Media Group Relaunches City Apps — Can Mobile Really Be Alt-Weeklies’ Salvation?
Voice Media Group, which acquired 11 alt-weeklies around the country back in October, is re-launching its various cities’ mobile apps, which it hopes will become go-to listings and reviews guides for their local markets. According to Tiffany Shackelford, the executive director at the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, many alt-weeklies, like VMG, are beginning to understand the importance of mobile…
Street Fight Daily: Airbnb Eyeing Former Square COO, Nokia Opens ‘Here’
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Airbnb May Hire Former Square Exec Rabois as COO (Wall Street Journal)… Nokia Opens Up Here platform With an Eye to the Future (GigaOm)… Why Big Brands Fell Out of Love with Check-Ins (Digiday)…
Publishers Could Gain More Control as Browsers Curb Behavioral Ads
As limits arise on behavioral ads, endemic sites (or sites with actionable user data) can essentially become ad networks. If browser limits mean that Cars.com can no longer sell its data, then the opportunity exists for the company itself to develop a platform to sell audience extension…