Groupon Names Lefkofsky CEO as Business Rebounds
Groupon’s search for a new chief executive ended Wednesday evening with a familiar name: Eric Lefkofsky. During an earnings call Wednesday, the company announced that the firm’s long-time executive chairman, who has shared the leadership duties with Ted Leonisis since the company fired founder Andrew Mason in February, will take on the full responsibilities as CEO. “Everything we do is with local in mind,” Lefkofsky stressed during the earnings call…
AOL’s Armstrong: 1/3 of Patch Sites Currently Have ‘Viable Business Model’
On an earnings call Wednesday, AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong said that the remaining 600 or so sites are split between properties that are on their way to viability, and sites that will likely not reach profitability by the end of the year. The news comes as AOL works to bring the closely-watched hyperlocal media network to run-rate profitability by the end of 2013, a commitment that Armstrong says the company still plans to meet…
With New Yelp Partnership, ReachLocal Puts (Some) Eggs in SaaS Basket
Less than a month after Yelp rolled out a partnership with Delivery.com and Eat24 to bring online ordering to the reviews site, the company announced on Tuesday the addition of ReachCommerce, ReachLocal’s newly launched booking software, to the Yelp Platform. The partnership will allow users to process book appointments with service providers, which use the ReachCommerce software, without leaving the Yelp app or site…
With Strong Earnings, Yelp Nears Profitability
The reviews site brought in $55 million in revenue during the quarter on a $878,000 loss, the closest the company has come to run-rate profitability since going public. The results come on the heels of a busy past few weeks for the company as it began to stake its position in a local market that’s increasingly shifting toward commerce technologies…
5 Keys To Making Local Listings Count
Local listing sites have mushroomed in recent years, sending local businesses scurrying to get their digital houses in order. In a Street Fight webinar Thursday sponsored by YP, David Mihm of Moz, and YP’s Deepak Thakral discussed the growing impact of listings in local search, and outlined a handful of first steps that local businesses can take to improve their presence online…
Local M&A Activity Hits $7.2 Billion In First Half of 2013
Whether it’s through acquisition or investment, money keeps flowing into the local space. The first half of 2013 saw total investment activity, which includes both M&A and private financing, grow from a year earlier, as the number of deals stayed flat but total reported deal value jumped from $5.2 billion to $7.2 billion over the same period, according to a new report from BIA/Kelsey…
Privacy Hawks in Tow, Euclid Pushes Ahead With Offline Retail Analytics
Amid congressional queries and rumbles in the press over privacy concerns, Euclid is pushing ahead with its effort to bring Google Analytics to the physical world. The service, which uses wi-fi signals to provide brick-and-mortar retailers with store analytics, has released a major update, adding new metrics, industry benchmarks, and a substantial redesign to its dashboard…
Study: Facebook Sees Growth as Local Search Source
A new study by Yext finds that consumers have started to come to Facebook to find local information. The study found that a little over 12% of respondents used Facebook to find local information, nearly twice the number for specialized-sites and a few points shy of the Yellow Pages/Local directories…
Bolstered By Bulls In North America, Global Mobile Ad Spend Jumps 82%
A new report from the IAB finds that global mobile advertising revenue jumped 82% in 2012, growing from $4.84 billion in 2011 to nearly $9 billion last year as smartphone adoption ramps and blue-chip marketers shift budget to mobile media. The bullish numbers, which are in line with other estimates, were bolstered by exceptional growth in the North American market…
Street Fight Daily: FTC Reviews Waze Deal, Twitter Developing Hyperlocal Ads
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Google Confirms Antitrust Review of Waze Deal(Wall Street Journal)… Twitter is Developing Geo-Targeted Ads for Retailers (AdAge)… Paton: ‘Bad CEOs and Worse Editors’ Are Trying To ‘Kill Our Future’()…
In Rush to Local Services, Thumbtack Nabs $12.5M Series B
The investment dollars keep flowing for companies in the local services space. Two months after scheduling firm Booker nabbed 27.5 million from Bain, Thumbtack, a startup that has built a reverse Craigslist for local services, has raised 12.5 million from Sequoia Capital in a series B round, bringing its total funding to a little over $18 million…
Street Fight Daily: Gannett Buys Belo, Patch Traffic Flat
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Patch has Proved To Be a $200 Million Money-Suck for AOL and Its Traffic Hasn’t Grown In a Year.(Business Insider)… Why Google Bought Waze (Prioleau Advisor)… ComScore: 4 Billion Local Searches in May (Screenwerk)…
With New Products and Integrations, Belly Looks Beyond Loyalty
A year and a half after launch, and Logan LaHive, chief executive of Belly, has a clear message for the competition: we’re winning. The Chicago-based company has rolled out new integrations with Yelp and Facebook this morning, marking the beginning of the company’s push to move beyond loyalty toward an open, social CRM…
Street Fight Daily: Google Buys Waze, UBL Snaps Up Local Incite
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Why Google Wanted Waze: The Local Ad Market Is Going Mobile (AdAge)… UBL Acquires Local Incite – Adds Chicago Presence (UBL)… HP and Google Team Up to Offer Small Businesses “IT in a Box” (AllThingsD)…
A Year After Big Scores by SinglePlatform and Yext, Locu Makes a Quiet Push
It’s been nearly a year since Yext announced a massive round of funding and SinglePlatform sold to Constant Contact within a week each other, and the value proposition for a real-time data and content network continues gain steam. As both firms put that capital to use, a third company, Locu, is trying to carve out its own share of the market with a similar model and sizable — albeit smaller — stack of cash…
It’s 2004 All Over Again: Mobile Spending to Double in 2013
According to a Borrell Associates client memo made available to Street Fight, local mobile advertising will increase 100% this year. That’s right; double. In some markets that number may translate into tens of thousands of dollars; in the largest, it’s $100 million or more. Gordon Borrell told us that what’s happening with advertising at the local level is “nothing short of phenomenal.”
Street Fight Daily: Google Close to Acquiring Waze, Why Yahoo Should Buy Foursquare
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Google Is Close to Acquiring Waze, a Rival in Maps (New York Times)… Checklist: All the reasons Yahoo is going to acquire Foursquare (Quartz)… Call It Groupon 3.0: Deals giant on a Mobile Mission (Crain’s Chicago Business)…
Street Fight Daily: Yahoo Talks ‘Localization,’ Smartphone Adoption Reaches Majority
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Checking Into Foursquare? Yahoo’s CFO Talks About Next Mobile M&A — Including Importance of “Localization.” (AllThingsD)… Pew: 61 Percent In US Now Have Smartphones (MarketingLand)… Yelp Eyes Shopping On Site (SocialTimes)…