From (Temporary) Yext HQ During Superstorm Sandy
When the power went out on Yext’s offices in Chelsea Market in New York City, the team scrambled to find new work space and take care of its employees. Event halls where conferences had been canceled delivered even more space than the company had in its permanent offices, and employees were put up in hotels so that they were free to focus on work instead of water and power. “People were happy to get back together, and the atmosphere is very focused.”
Openings & New Hires at Patch, Yelp, Supermedia, HopStop, Square & More
Executives moving on up and over lately in sales, product, marketing, business development and more. Plus, who’s hiring? Yext, Yelp, Yodle, Restaurant.com, LivingSocial, DealHeaven, Apple and HopStop. Hyperlocal is expanding fast, and these openings are just one indication. Listings include links on where to apply. Get started now!
Where Do Business Listings Come From?
At some point in the future, local data must become purely digital, because the phone book will not be around forever. But until a critical mass of U.S. businesses understands the rationale for managing online data, this fundamental problem will continue. We need the concerted effort of all local search players to educate the local business community and advocate for the transition to digital data…
Transaction Overview: CityGrid Acquires Felix
Yext launched Felix in 2009 as a pay-per-call local advertising service. What makes Felix unique is its patent-pending engine that uses speech recognition technology to listen to all the calls received by a local business. It then transcribes and analyzes the calls, separating those received from consumers from those received from wrong numbers, telemarketers and job seekers…
With Felix Buy, CityGrid Focuses on Closed-Loop Transactions
“As a standalone brand under CityGrid, Felix will be able to expand its advertiser base and develop new products that help local businesses find new customers across the web and mobile devices,” said Jason Finger, CityGrid’s CEO. “Now that Felix is part of IAC, it also has the ability to more effectively syndicate its current customers across the CityGrid network.”
Street Fight Daily: Square Loyalty, LocalResponse Nears Profit
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology...
Square Gets Into the Loyalty Game with Digital Punch Cards (GigaOm)…
LocalResponse: Our Ad Network Has 7 Billion Impressions Per Month And Is Almost Profitable (TechCrunch)…
On The Heels Of Its Funding, Yext Gets A New Interface And Review Monitoring (TechCrunch)…
Yext Scores $27 Million in New Funding
The round comes two months after the company spun-off its original pay-per-call business and co-founder Brent Metz into an independent division called Felix — a move which, at the time, Yext CEO Howard Lerman told Street Fight was in response to the massive growth of the company’s PowerListings product and pressure from the board “to throw all of our weight behind it.”
6 Tools SMBs Can Use to Update Digital Directory Listings
Almost half of all business listings on hyperlocal services and online directories include information that is outdated, incorrect, or incomplete — a major problem given that 92% of people use online directories to research products or services in their areas. Here are six platforms that merchants can use to improve the accuracy of their directory listings and increase their businesses’ exposure online…
Yext Infographic: 64% of Foursquare Listings Have Missing or Incorrect Info
The graphic draws from data collected through Yext’s diagnostic tool, and shows that upwards of 40% of business listings on major hyperlocal services and directories include incorrect information. Foursquare is most consistently incorrect or incomplete, with 64% of the listings in the service including an error or missing key information (like a phone number), followed closely by AOL-owned MapQuest and Citysearch at 57%…
Yext Partners With UBL, Begins Push to Scale
The reapproachment between the competitors indicates a substantial shift in strategy for both companies as Yext looks for scale and UBL repositions its brand. UBL appears to be pushing forward with a full-service SEO/listings management product. Conversely, Yext is planting its flag as a technology play…
Yext CEO: ‘Fairly Intense Consolidation’ En Route for Local Marketers
In July, Yext raised $10 Million to fund its new Power Listings product, and the company has since amassed a massive customer base, onboarding over 40,000 paying subscribers in a little over a year after the launch. Street Fight caught up with the company’s CEO, Howard Lerman, to take a deep dive into the business of local information and to talk about which hyperlocal companies he sees coming out on top…
Street Fight Daily: 11.18.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Yelp Files for $100 Million IPO (GigaOm)…
Major Newspaper Publishers Band Together On Social Shopping Portal (PaidContent)…
Patch Traffic Rides High on Local Elections and Hurricanes — But can a Drive-by Audience Be Enough? (Nieman Lab)…
Why the Merchant API Is Key to Foursquare’s Future
Last week, Foursquare updated its business page, adding case studies for merchants and use studies for brands, and generally improving the user experience. Since updating its merchant platform in the spring, the location-based social networking company has quietly launched an offensive to create a viable B2B component in their business, laying the groundwork for future monetization…
Street Fight Daily: 07.29.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Foursquare users in the U.S. and Canada will start to see Groupon’s daily deals in the Explore tab of the application and on Foursquare.com beginning today. Groupon has become Foursquare’s sixth and latest daily deals partner. (Mashable)…
Are targeted local deals services cutting news organizations out of the market that used to keep them afloat, just like Craigslist did to their classifieds? (ReadWriteWeb)…
Reputation Management: Making the Connection with Small Businesses
Now that everyone has a timeline of online activities going back several years — one that family members, prospective employers, and potential life partners are looking at and judging us by — we have all become public figures to an extent, and at the same time we’ve had to transform ourselves into hall monitors of our own online activities. So why hasn’t reputation management become a de facto part of every small business marketing plan?