Street Fight Daily: Yelp Launches Display Ads, TribLocal Reporters Sue
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Yelp to Start Offering Mobile Display Ads in Bid for Revenue (AdAge)… TribLocal reporters win $660K in class-action against Tribune Co. (Chicago Tribune)… Don’t Weep for Groupon Ex-CEO Andrew Mason (Wall Street Journal)…
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: Location’s Dirty Secret, Yelp Explains Filter
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… The Dirty Little Secret About Location-Targeted Mobile Ads (Business Insider)… Yelp CEO Stoppelman Explains the Site’s Controversial ‘Review Filter’ (Screenwerk)… How to Make the Most of Mobile Local Search (Mashable)…
Street Fight Daily: Angie’s List Worth $1 Billion, Tiger Global Bets on Groupon
Street Fight Daily: Stoppelman Makes a Buck, Local’s Top Ten
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Yelp CEO Takes $1 Salary (CNET)… The World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Local (TechCrunch)… Why Daily Deals Aren’t All Bad (No, Really) (PandoDaily)…
Street Fight Daily: Aol Under Armstrong, Big Moves in Online Delivery
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… At AOL Under Tim Armstrong, the Only Constant Is Change (AdAge)… Made To Order: Big Moves In Online Food Delivery (ReadWrite)… Report: Geo-Aware, Geofenced Ads Outperform Other LoMo Targeting (Screenwerk)…
Yelp Hits 100 Million Uniques as Users Shift to Mobile
Yelp reported mixed earnings on Wednesday as wider than expected losses tempered strong revenue growth in the fourth quarter. The reviews site brought in $41.2 million during the quarter, taking its annual revenue to $137.6 million for 2012. The overwhelming majority of its revenue growth came on the backs of local advertisers as brand spending remained flat…
Street Fight Daily: Abraham Leaves eBay, Opentable Acquires Foodspotting
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… eBay Loses Head of Local Jack Abraham (Fortune)… OpenTable to Acquire Foodspotting for $10 Million (The New York Times)… Why the Future of Local-Mobile Advertising Is Not What You May Think (Screenwerk)…
Street FIght Daily: Shopkick Hits Profitability, Groupon Expands Reporting
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Shopkick Says It’s Now Profitable, With Its Shopping App Adding $200M In Sales For Target, Best Buy And Others In 2012 (TechCrunch)… Groupon Unveils Merchant Impact Report, a Free Service So Merchants Can Justify Their Deal Performance (The Next Web)… AOL’s Patch to Go From Lousy Local News Network to Even Worse Community Message Board network (PandoDaily)…
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Threatens Yelp, Locu Expands
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Watch Out Foursquare And Yelp: ‘Places’ Really Shines On Facebook Graph Search (TechCrunch)… JiWire Serves Up Location-based Ads Over Airport Wi-Fi (GigaOm)… Locu Brings Up-To-Date Menus to Restaurants on TripAdvisor and Citysearch (The Next Web)…
Social Isn’t Search: Why Apple Should Think Twice About Foursquare
Though the cachet of the Foursquare name might make this idea sound appealing, my sense is that it could only be executed successfully if handled very carefully by Apple. With the prominence already given to socially driven results from Yelp, Apple would risk becoming a search service dominated by social content…
Street Fight Daily: FTC Clears Google, Square Sold at Starbucks
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Yelp Calls FTC Deal with Google a ‘Missed Opportunity’ (CNet)… Now on Sale at Starbucks: Square’s Credit Card Reader (The New York Times)… You’re Not Alone: Hyper-Local People-Finding (ClickZ)…
Street Fight Daily: Apple Vets Waze, Yelp Lawsuit Overturned
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Is Apple Plotting A Route To A Waze Acquisition? Rumours On The Road Point To Yes… (TechCrunch)… Judge Can’t Order Yelp User to Edit Negative Review (Ars Technica)… eBay Tries Two New Ways to Sell: Drop-Off Points and Home Pick-Up (AllThingsD)…
Street Fight’s Most Popular Stories of 2012
On this last day of 2012, here’s a look back at some of the Street Fight stories that really piqued your interest this year (at least as far as pageviews go). We’re grateful for all of your support this past year, and we look forward to bringing you more great content, research, and events about sustainable hyperlocal business models in 2013!
Is Facebook Local’s Waking Giant?
“Google is the best advertising product in the history of the world… because it’s like advertising at a store,” Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget said recently. “Facebook, meanwhile, is like advertising at a party.” But despite Google’s user-side advantages here, Facebook could have an edge in SMB engagement…
Case Study: Using LinkedIn, Twitter to Cultivate Local Relationships
Chicago-based Foiled Cupcakes is a delivery-only business, but by tapping into networks on LinkedIn and Twitter, and keeping a close watch over the reviews posted on sites like Yelp, owner Mari Luangrath has been able to cultivate relationships with potential customers and position her enterprise as the go-to destination for companies needing desserts for in-house events or client gifts…

How to Create a Great Vertical Directory
It’s tough for a start-up to break into the top echelon of local search players and become a one-size-fits-all solution like Google or YP. The great opportunity that exists in the space lies in serving special interests or special use cases better than anyone has before. Foursquare and Yelp are highly visible examples of this, but other very successful, vertically oriented directories exist, flying mostly under our radar…