Street Fight Daily: 10.18.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
New York state tax administrators have concluded merchants should collect sales tax on the full face value of items purchased with vouchers from Groupon, LivingSocial and other Internet discount deal sites —if the vouchers are for a specific dollar amount. (Forbes)…
New York City’s Gothamist is thriving with an average 2 million unique visitors each month reading its eclectic brand of voice-forward reporting and aggregation geared to the young and well-heeled. Its success has allowed it to spin off sister sites across the country and around the globe. (NetNewsCheck)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.17.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Huffington Post’s purchase of Localocracy is further evidence of the “neighbor connect” online space heating up. At least two dozen significant startupshave popped up in the past year focused on facilitating conversation among people who live near each other. Some, like Localocracy, aim at niches (local ballot issues and related), while others intend to promote a general sense of community. (MediaShift)…
HopStop, the online service that provides door-to-door subway and bus directions for major cities in the U.S. and abroad, has kicked off “HopStop AdLocal,” a new program that offers businesses up to 12,500 free advertising impressions over a 30-day period, a value of $250, the company says. (Entrepreneur)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.14.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
MapQuest’s new Vibe uses data collected from the past 10 years about cities’ most popular destinations. Vijay Bangaru, MapQuest vice president of product, writes that the concept originated out of a shift in users’ needs from “maps and directions” to “local search.” (Mashable)…
Groupon and LivingSocial succeed because consumers perceive them as great deals. But is that true? Perhaps not. Thumbtack.com called 10 vendors offering daily deals (five from Groupon and five from LivingSocial) and found eight instances where they were quoted a price over the phone that was cheaper than the advertised regular price being offered. (Business Insider)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.13.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
The next update to Foursquare’s iPhone app includes a new feature called Radar, which pulls suggestions from the app’s Explore feature. Depending on your location, it might suggest a nearby restaurant, or remind you that the coffee shop on your to-do list is nearby. It will also tell you when your friends are meeting nearby. (TechCrunch)…
LocalResponse, a local marketing system that pushes targeted ads to users based on their check-ins, has raised $5 million. The money will go toward expanding the sales team and building out an enterprise version of the service for brands and agencies. (GigaOm)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.12.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Gannett’s MomsLikeMe hyperlocal parenting network will cease operating on Friday and its 100-plus town-specific sites will go dark and the content will be deleted. (PaidContent)…
AmazonLocal posted more than 300% revenue growth in September. It has expanded to 40 markets and brought in $4 million of gross revenue in September. (Business Insider)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.11.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Microsoft appears to be readying the formal launch of a Bing-branded daily deals website powered by white-label group buying platform service provider Tippr. This offering is notably different from Microsoft’s earlier launch of Bing Deals, which basically features links to aggregated deals from a number of partners. (TechCrunch)…
The daily deal industry has jolted a formerly sleepy corner of the $30 billion online advertising market: the local part of the paid search marketing business. Local search ads that included references to towns and cities were not in demand until daily deal companies started paying handsomely to track down people interested in neighborhood goods and services. (Reuters)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.10.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
All of the major players in the daily deals industry experienced significant gross revenue growth in September. Total industry gross revenue jumped 12%, from an estimated $238 million in August to $267 million in September. The number of deals offered increased by 6%. (Yipit Blog)…
Reports of the death of Groupon’s IPO plans have apparently been greatly exaggerated. The online daily deals pioneer filed an updated version of its S-1 document with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, as part of its preparation for a planned initial public offering of its stock. (GigaOm)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.07.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.
Groupon said in a regulatory filing that it plans to “significantly” reduce online marketing spending over time as such investments yield insufficient returns. (Bloomberg)
“AOL’s management may be committed to Patch for now, but the company can’t continue pouring money into an unprofitable entity forever, no matter how much Webster talks about a “long-term” investment,” writes Mathew Ingram. (GigaOm)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.06.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
U.K. regional newspaper publisher Northcliffe Media wants publishers to pay to be part of its hyperlocal network. The group is beginning a “franchise” model, where “franchisees” must pay Northcliffe at least £6,995 ($10810.24) plus VAT to run their own local site. For that, they would get keys to the site, the “ability to sell advertising space” themselves, a “marketing pack” and “handbook” and a whole three days’ training. (Paid Content)…
“It’s not worth trying to be comprehensive” in hyperlocal, writes publisher Richard Jones. “Focus on doing what you’re able to do and do it well, rather than trying to take on the impossible.” (Richard Jones Journalism Blog)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.05.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Apple is launching a new location-sharing feature called Find My Friends, that will allow users to easily share their location with other users. The details are still coming in but users will be able to share their location with friends and find out where their friends and family are in real-time. (GigaOm)…
If enough people buy into Groupon’s IPO, it seems, they all may get a discount, writes Tom Johansmeyer. Of course, this isn’t the goal of the daily deal site, but it could be an unintended consequence. (Business Insider)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.04.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
In the top 30 US markets, no company that reports purchase counts outperformed Groupon in August. In fact, in only 5 markets is the second largest competitor even generating 50% of the gross revenue Groupon generates. (Yipit Blog)…
It was only about six months ago that investor excitement for a Groupon IPO was so high that its expected valuation was $25 billion. Now, institutional investors are wary. A fund manager suggests that Groupon might have to reduce its IPO valuation to between $3 billion and $5 billion in order to get it out the door. (TechCrunch)…
Hyperlocal Publishers Form a Trade Group
A group of 22 local online news organizations have announced that they are forming a trade association. The parameters and potential activity of the association remain largely undefined, but the group includes some of the better-known names in indie hyperlocal publishing, including The Batavian’s Howard Owens, Baristanet’s Debra Gallant, and Oakland Local’s Susan Mernit…
Street Fight Daily: 10.03.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Loopt has been allowed its first patent, and it could be a big one. In layman’s terms, the patent describes using your location to display relevant ads and offers on top of a map, as an interstitial, or as a text ad — another claim also discusses displaying where your friends are on the same map. (TechCrunch)…
A basic contradiction at the heart of the daily deals industry on the Internet has become apparent. Consumers have been told: You will never pay full price again. The merchants were hearing: You are going to get new customers who will stick around and pay full price. Disappointment was inevitable. (New York Times)…
Street Fight Daily: 09.30.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
AOL appears to be preparing us for some kind of neighborhood-based social network built around MapQuest. It has registered a bunch of domains this year that all point to a page that says something called “mqVibe” is coming soon. (ReadWriteWeb)…
Facebook Deals official last day was Sunday, but sources say the company’s withdrawal is not a bad omen for the industry. All of the companies in the space, including newbie Google, are rapidly creating mobile solutions that will recognize when people are close to a deal and allow them to redeem it immediately. (AllThingsD)…
Street Fight Daily: 09.29.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
In an effort to diversify revenue and maintain its rapid growth, Groupon is fast evolving its business model. Recently Groupon deals have gone mobile, real-time, and location aware. Now the company has launched “Groupon Goods,” an ecommerce product that marks the company’s most aggressive departure away from its core daily deal offers. (CNET)…
Daily deals service Signpost is growing its sales force at a rapid pace that could surpass competitors like Groupon and LivingSocial by the end of the year, according to the company’s CEO, Stuart Wall. Signpost employs local contractors, called Deal Scouts, to sign up local businesses for the service. (SocialBeat)…
Street Fight Daily: 09.28.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
New data from Yipit finds that in August each of the industry’s top five deals was from a different category – and all were from Groupon. The top-grossing deal last month was a travel deal from Groupon Getaways, a new category that Groupon entered less than six weeks before. (Yipit Blog)…
Groupon is about to roll out a new product called Groupon Rewards that tries to give merchants a way to increase customer loyalty. With a Groupon Reward, a business that offers a regular Groupon deal will be able to follow up with another reward that gets unlocked after the customer spends a certain amount of money. (TechCrunch)…
Street Fight Daily: 09.27.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
September can’t end soon enough for Groupon. The month brought a string of staff departures, SEC spats and the indefinite shelving of the company’s long-awaited IPO. Now a second class of employees has filed a class action against Groupon over unpaid overtime. (PaidContent)…
Facebook is offering up to $10 million in free advertising to small businesses in the middle of slight changes to how the social networking site allows brands and consumers to interact on its Pages. (ReadWriteWeb)…
Street Fight Daily: 09.26.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Margo Georgiadis is leaving her job as Groupon’s COO after just five months on the executive team to return to Google, her former employer, as President, Americas. The company has also filed an amended S-1, which includes revised revenue numbers based on a change in accounting. (TechCrunch)…
One self-described “riled” Patch editor from the East Coast says that in addition to his or her normal job responsibilities, this editor has also been asked to start drumming up ad sales leads. (Business Insider)…
Street Fight Daily: 09.23.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Google Offers didn’t do particularly well in August – but the daily deal product radically improved in September. Through just the first three weeks of the month, Google has already surpassed last month’s total revenue of $265k and is on track to more than double this figure by month’s end. (Yipit Blog)…
A source says that AOL is using “smoke and mirrors” trying to get 10 Patch sites profitable by the end of the year. It all has to do with some clever accounting, pushing a bigger chunk of ad dollars from regional campaigns into the target towns at the expense of the rest. (Business Insider)…