Street Fight Daily: 04.11.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups… It makes sense for Groupon to move beyond vouchers, given indications that just 20% of customers using Groupons return to a retailer for a second, nondiscounted visit. That’s a steep price to pay when selling a service for 75% off or more after commission. (Forbes)… Although location-based services are still in the early stages, they appear to be having an influence that is similar to the one that social media has had. (WebProNews)… Google said it has added check-in deals nationally to its location-based service. Companies participating in the service at launch include American Eagle Outfitters, Quizno’s, Macy’s and RadioShack. (DM News)…

Street Fight Daily: 04.08.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.Google Latitude, the search giant’s location-sharing mobile app, is launching check-in offers nationwide, giving users the ability to unlock discounts with a handful of launch partners. (Mashable)… Arianna Huffington says that Patch will be key to HuffPo’s coverage of the 2012 presidential election. “We’re launching over 30 new patches in primary states,” she said. (THR)… Yahoo has beefed up its local coverage, adding to its staff of local editors and aggregating local news, deals, and events in specific neighborhoods and cities on Yahoo Local. (PaidContent)

Street Fight Daily: 04.07.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.

Examiner.com CEO Rick Blair doesn’t like the implication that his network of hyperlocal sites is effectively a “content mill.” He describes “examiners” as specialists in old-school and new media reporting with a local flair. (Mediabistro)…

Groupon is taking another move beyond its core deal-of-the-day business with the launch of home and garden deals. This, like its recent location-based changes, are part of a broader strategy to better match offers to specific interests of its subscribers. (Crain’s Chicago Business)…

“We are entering what might be called Hyperlocal 2.0, and the market is still up for grabs,” writes Tom Rosenstiel. “But how to produce local content remains a mystery.” (Washington Post)…

Street Fight Daily: 04.06.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.

Hyperlocal network Examiner.com has often been frustrated by being lumped in with the so-called “content farms.” So, over the past year, it’s instituted a process to shore up the quality of its posts and contributors. (Paid Content)…

As developers build rich layers of information atop location data, our understanding of the world is changing. Foursquare is the tip of the iceberg. The new wave of hyperlocal data is surging, writes Shane Snow. (Mashable)…

The “Top 6″ local online companies in ad revenue have abundant local content — but none of it is news. Instead, the ads and associated shopping information are the content. (Poynter)…

Street Fight Daily: 04.05.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.

Living Social says it expects $1 billion in revenue this year. The company has also quietly raised $400 million in funding to catch up with Groupon. (Business Insider)…

Back in June of 2009, then-new CEO Tim Armstrong made two acquisitions to move AOL into the local space: Patch and Going. While the verdict is still very much out on Patch, it’s clear that AOL is at least committed to it. Going? Not so much. (TechCrunch)…

Can the Groupon model save newspapers?
Earl Wilkinson notes that the company is the number one search term on his newspaper association site, and gives a rundown of the stats. (INMA)…

Street Fight Daily: 04.04.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.

Craigslist, long blamed as the killer of newspaper classifieds (and, by extension, local news), may have jumped the shark. (Business Insider)…

Daily deal sites, most notably Groupon, are taking over the landscape that once belonged to the local newspapers. Whether those newspapers that survive can reinvent themselves is yet to be seen. (Daily Deal Media)

Gowalla says it will double the size of its operations this year and reshaping itself as a “social Lonely Planet.” (Independent)…

Street Fight Daily: 04.01.11

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What’s happening around media, technology, advertising and startups in hyperlocal, every week day.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. has acquired Larchmont, New York-based hyperlocal network theLoop for an undisclosed sum.“Hyperlocal news is a trend in news consumption that’s here to stay,” said a well-placed News Corp. executive. (theLoop)…

Walgreens is the first retailer to try a major national Foursquare promotion. Most of the retail chain’s 7,600 locations are now offering store patrons who check in on the geo-social platform 15 percent off eligible items and 20 percent off Walgreens-branded products. (Clickz)…

Location-based services will be so all-pervasive by 2014, experts believe, that it will be possible to locate every one of us every second of every day. But has the law caught up to technology? (Guardian)…

Street Fight Daily: 03.31.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.
According to a new study by Borrell Associates, the portion of the local online advertising market held by internet “pureplays” (as opposed to outlets affiliated with other media) is no longer expanding. For the third year in-a-row, the share of revenue going to pureplays has stayed the same. (PoMo Blog)…

Gordon Borrell on what is driving local advertising growth, why newspapers will fall behind the internet, and why Groupon is such a success. (Media Life)…

As everyone from the largest of media companies to independent local hyperlocal news sites seek to capitalize on the $30B local advertising market, which hyperlocal business models are succeeding and why? How will hyperlocal news change the world of journalism? (ScribeMedia)…

Street Fight Daily: 03.30.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.

Are expiration dates on Groupon deals illegal? Groupon was sued eight times in all of 2010 — but in 2011, that pace has increased. It’s been sued in federal court 12 times this year. (PaidContent)…

CBS Local Digital Media and CityGrid Media have partnered on an advertising/listings initiative targeting local businesses that want to get broad exposure to online and mobile consumers across the country. (Broadcasting & Cable)…

How to start your own local news site. Tips from a Berkeleyside co-founder. (10,000 Words)…

Street Fight Daily: 03.29.11

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.Ex-TBD chief Jim Brady joins Journal Register “to lead the Digital Transformation of all of its newsroom on all platforms.” (Journal Register Company Press Release)… A new study from Borrell Associates has found that national Internet pure-plays Autotrader.com and Groupon have taken the lead in generating advertising dollars in many local markets. (NetNewsCheck)… Human participation — and thus social media — is central to successful hyperlocal platforms. It’s all about community empowerment. Here are 4 interesting hyperlocal social media ideas. (eMedia Vitals/Ron Mwangaguhunga)…

Surprise! SoLoMo is Hot!

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The Wall Street Journal reports today that the floodgates held back by VC stinginess, myopia and ignorance have been loosed following excitement over – yep – mobile social … or social mobile + local … or social local mobile if you like.

At least in the Valley, where these things tend to happen, pushing and shoving is going on to get a piece of several startups in the space (if SoLoMo can be considered one space, and we think it can).

“We would have people show up at our offices every other day wanting to meet while we were trying to get work done,” said Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom. Since launching in October, the service has nearly three million users, he said.

In addition, Yobongo Inc., a three-week-old iPhone app that lets users chat with people located in their geographic area, said Wednesday it raised $1.35 million. In January a group-texting service called GroupMe said it raised $10.6 million.

For the whole story check it here. And see their nifty chart below:…

Examiner.com Bets on Real IDs with Facebook Comments

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Examiner.com continues to roll. Along with several others including TechCrunch it has implemented the next phase of Facebook’s Comments plugin. The somewhat controversial updated system integrates relevant, high‐quality, and authentic comments to publishers and sites that will be reciprocated on Facebook. Ah, the virtuous recirculation; the circle of SEO wonderfulness…

Geolocated Insta-Deals Demand You Buy Nearby NOW!

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So you want to be on the receiving end of the latest revolution in capitalism: I’m speaking of daily deals of course. You’ve got lots of options, some of which are critiqued on this site, and some not yet. And one that doesn’t actually exist so I made it up – NeMeNo.

And now LivingSocial has done something very expected, as mentioned before, called Instant Deals…

Shop Savvier with Groupon Integration

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ShopSavvy just got savvier… or at least dealier.

Continuing the trend of deal-0-day sites integrating with other destinations and apps, ShopSavvy is partnering with couponing giant Groupon to deliver offfers direct to ShopSavvy smartyphone users…

WHERE Helps You Bump Into a Perfect Place

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Ever debated about where to go and what to do? Sure you have. Where once you had to leave it to your brain and powers of persuasion you can now, finally, leave it to a machine. (And maybe a “bump”.)

That machine, evolved today by WHERE, Inc., is known as Perfect Places (seems every startup’s got “Place” in their name somewhere these days) which aims to help you and friends peacefully find cool things to do together by recommending nearby venues based on shared interests or tastes. This is a further improvement of WHERE’s proprietary recommendation engine, in use by four million people…

Crowdsourced Mapping Leads Your Cell to the Signal

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Classic modern quandary: Travel to the lake for a little R&R even though there might not be a cell signal connecting your to precisely what you’re trying to briefly escape?

Sure, you could count on the carrier’s coverage map and take your chances. Orrrrr you could get hip and look to a crowd-data-sourcing-experiment being conducted by Staircase 3, Inc. ..

Deal of the Day: LivingSocial to Distribute Local Bargains on Examiner.com

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Yahoo Local doesn’t have it. CitySearch doesn’t. Patch.com? Nope. Seems Examiner.com is the first “local service” striking a deal to distribute LivingSocial’s popular group-buying deals.

Announced today, LivingSocial will distribute it’s up to 90%-discounted deals to 130 of Examiner.com’s network of 240 local markets…

Location-Based Firewall Blocks Content Here, Not There

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Need to control what content gets through that iPhone based on where the user is standing? Welcome the very government-y sounding “Mobile Active Defense” from M.A.D. Partners, LLC.

This mobile firewall with “contents filtering mechanisms” enforces controls based upon the physical location of the mobile device using the company’s Mobile Enterprise Compliance and Security Server (MECS) for controlled access, security and compliance enforcement mechanism echoing “fixed” policies.

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Chat Up Nearby Drivers: It’s Mobile Social Traffic!

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Ever heard of “remote viewing”? Wiki defines it as the ability to see “an unseen target using paranormal means.” In the rational world one might apply a definition closer to what newcomer TrafficTalk does.

Almost as cool as seeing around corners with a third eye is doing it with the help of scores of people you’ve never met. And Traffic Talk might have ultimate confluence of realtime, crowdsourcing, social engagement utilities mated to make it happen.
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Profile Valet Shields Embarrassment, Improves Your Battery Life

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And it’s free!

Let’s start there, because as with most good software this is merely icing on the cupcake — if it’s that good you don’t care about shelling out a micropayment in an app store.

And some of you might already have done so, buying a similar Android app that takes a circuitous route to optimizing your device experience. Might want to rethink that purchase: Enter freebie Profile Valet from the guys at Pushpin Labs and say goodbye to the randomness associated with the feature functions happening under the covers of your favorite handset. What’s that mean exactly? It means your phone’s IQ just leaped 50 points.

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