EIC Brian Farnham on Patch’s Local-National Dance With HuffPo
AOL’s Patch was, handily, the brainchild of Tim Armstrong before he became the media giant’s CEO. In 800 local communities across the country, Patch is one of the bright spots in hyperlocal business models, with each “Patch” manned by a single editor and an ad sales person, and supported by a network of regional editors. But how will AOL’s acquisition of Huffington Post impact Patch? Well, just yesterday Arianna Huffington announced that she is planning to hire as many as 800 new full-time employees to beef up content on Patch’s network of sites and reduce the use of freelancers. Street Fight spoke recently with editor-in-chief Brian Farnham about Patch’s mission, the importance of pothole stories, how to help local businesses navigate online advertising, and the local-national strategy it’s developing with HuffPo.
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Gowalla’s Josh Williams: Groupon Is One-Dimensional
Location-based check-in service Gowalla is kind of a virtual tour guide, to use the analogy of the day for such companies. Mobile users log in with their location and get information about the places around them, nearby businesses and places their friends recommend. Gowalla integrates both Facebook Places and Foursquare check-ins, and lets users share photographs tagged to places.
Street Fight spoke to the company’s CEO, Josh Williams, who called Groupon “one-dimensional” for now, and discussed the scramble for local ad dollars, the inseparability of mobile and location, and the persistent privacy problem around check-ins...
Roger Smith Hotel: Social Media Beats Location-Based, for Now
If you’ve been to the Roger Smith Hotel in Manhattan, you know it’s hip. And it’s the same online. The “Twitter hotel,” as it’s known, has developed a cult following online thanks to social media maven Adam Wallace, director of digital marketing. Wallace recently spoke to Street Fight for its series of conversations with local businesses.…
Meet the Father of Group Messaging – Upoc
Cynics say everything is derivative. The ignorant never know the difference.
But sometimes it’s worth looking back at what came before, if only to illuminate history for those who simply don’t know, but should.
Case in point: What’s hotter in tech than ‘group messaging’ in all it’s unvaried forms? (Forget group buying a minute.) Answer: not much. GroupMe, groupflier, Beluga, Fast Society, Kik, even Google. These are some of the players lately giving users the ability to communicate over their phones, via text, to many people in one shot. Another popular use is collecting your friends into groups, much like an email list – situational text communities if you will…
5 Questions for Grant Ritchie of Locationary
This is the tenth in a series of Q&As with leaders / up-and-comers in the local space.
Who he is: Grant Ritchie, CEO of Locationary
What he does: A serial entrepreneur, Ritchie is a lawyer and technologist whose day-to-day includes providing Locationary oversight, guidance and direction over operations and technology systems. Prior to Locationary, Grant was a commercial and technology lawyer at a large Toronto firm and was part of the founding team that built and launched several online businesses including Moola.com (a game network with over 430,000 registered members) and CanadianHotelGuide.com…
5 Questions for Jack Eisenberg of MapDing
This is the ninth in a series of Q&As with leaders / up-and-comers in the local space.
Who is he: Jack Eisenberg
What does he do: One of two founders of MapDing (formed last September and self-funded) Jack calls himself a serial entrepreneur who wants to make life easier through mobile technology. “In a previous life, I published a year’s worth of research across Japan and the Netherlands on immigration. I also worked in city government, political consulting, and as an ESL teacher at a non-profit,” he said. The Chicagoan also notes “I will always be an autodidact.” OK!…
5 Questions for Lenny Rachitsky of Localmind
This is the seventh in a series of Q&As with leaders/up-n-comers in the local space.
Who is he: Lenny Rachitsky, 29
What does he do: C-Everything of Localmind, as-yet-launched startup funded by Year One Labs, an incubator out of Montreal
Describe Localmind as if a friend’s mother asked, “So what is this Localmind?
I’m glad you asked, Mrs. Mom…
5 Questions for John Kim of Whrrl (Pelago)
This is the sixth in a series of brief Q&As with leaders and up-and-comers in the local space… 
Describe Whrrl as if a friend’s mother asked, “So what is this Whrrl?
I bet if we asked, you could name off the top of your head three favorite places to go and the things you do at those places. Finding new places that are perfect for you is hard because people are content to stick to what they know.
Whrrl increases the possibility of discovering something new — rather than you finding ideas, we believe the right ideas should find you…
5 Questions for Pia Arthur of Gowalla
This is the fifth in a series of brief Q&As with leaders and up-and-comers in the local space…
Describe Gowalla as if a friend’s mother asked, “So what is this Gowalla?
Gowalla is a social network that inspires people to keep up with friends, share the places they go and discover the extraordinary in the world around them. Like a passport on your phone, Gowalla was born out of a desire to share remarkable places and life journeys in a fun, easy and social way. Since launch, people have visited, commented on and photographed 2 million places in 170 countries with Gowalla…
5 Questions for Rick Blair of Examiner.com
This is the fifth in a series of brief Q&As with leaders and up-and-comers in the local space.
Describe Examiner as if a friend’s mother asked, “So what is this Examiner?”
Think of the early roots of information exchange, before the Internet, before phones even. People would return from travels abroad with news, ideas and new trends and happenings. People received their information from those around them that were closest to the subject matter. That’s what Examiner.com…
5 Questions for Clay Graham of RateCred
This is the fourth in a series of brief Q&As with leaders and up-and-comers in the local space
Describe RateCred as if a friend’s mother asked, “So what is this RateCred?”
Well my mom uses RateCred. One day she said to me “Clay, can I try that rate for credit thing you do? Last night I went to my favorite Greek restaurant, and they gave me a free Souvlaki appetizer! I always go places that I want my friends to know about.” So we don’t try to be a directory of places, although we do that too, what we want to do very well is is make it simple to share your opinion about the places you go with your friends. We then make that a game with rewards so it’s fun to play the rating game with others…
5 Questions for Sam Altman of Loopt
This is the third in a series of brief Q&As with leaders in the local space.
Describe Loopt as if a friend’s mother asked, “So what is this Loopt?”
Think about the last time you walked into a coffee shop, and saw someone that you hadn’t seen a long time, or you stumble into a gallery that you love. This is one of those great life experiences that are amazingwhen you have them, but they don’t happen terribly often on their own. With Loopt, you get a sharper view, you can see that a friend is 10 blocks away, get alerts when they are close, see what places your friends like around you. These “intentional accidents” are what make Loopt fascinating to a lot of people…
5 Questions for Mark Josephson of Outside.in
This is the second in a series of brief Q&As with leaders in the local space.
So who are you?
Mark Josephson
What do you do?
CEO of Outside.in
Describe Outside.in as if a friend’s mother asked, “So what is this Outside In?”
Outside.in collects news and information from a wide variety of sources across the web (everything from your local weekly paper to your favorite local blog) and organizes it all by neighborhood. We then take all of these locally relevant headlines and show them on our site, Outside.in, as well as on the sites of hundreds of major media companies like CNN, NYTimes, Tribune, NYPost and more…
5 Questions for Walt Doyle of Where Inc.
This is the first in a series of brief Q&As with leaders in the local space.
Who is he?
Walt Doyle
What does he do?
CEO of Where, Inc.
Describe WHERE as if a friend’s mother asked, “So what is this WHERE?”
WHERE is a service on mobile phones and the web that helps people discover their local area. Based on some information about your interests, WHERE helps you discover great places and great deals that you may not know about. WHERE Ads is an advertising network that helps connect business owners with a local audience…