A few weeks ago, we wrote about check-in fraud. Also known as "fake check-ins," this is the act of checking into a location -- using Foursquare, Loopt, Gowalla or any number of quickly growing mobile check-in apps -- when you're…
EMarketer reports today that the U.S. mobile video market will be just under $550 million this year, growing to $1.34 billion in 2014 (25 percent CAGR). This is divided between pay-per-download (75 percent), subscription based (18 percent) and ad-supported (6 percent)…
On Friday I attended TechCrunch's Social Currency CrunchUp on the Stanford University campus, followed by the swanky party on the veranda of the nearby August Capital. Though my live blogging efforts were thwarted by a bad connection on-site, there were…
ComScore released a report today with the Yellow Pages Association, showing that mobile local search monthly users now total 17.3 million, a 14 percent year-over-year increase. This outpaced overall mobile Web and application use, which grew by 10 percent during…
Google announced today that it's launching location-aware mobile display ads for iPhone and Android devices. This will be an offshoot of its local extensions ads for mobile search. Extensions let advertisers specify many locations in AdWords so appropriate local addresses…
Forrester is out with a new study that concludes most advertisers should hold off on starting location-based ad campaigns with Foursquare. While we agree that Foursquare gets more attention than its usage (2 million users) deserves, this could be missing…
In case you missed them, here are a few headlines and links to recent posts on our Mobile Local Media blog. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed here, and the e-mail alert here. -- Geo-Loco 2010: Location-Based Services as a Branding…
Following up on the previous post about my LBS panel at Geo-Loco yesterday, the wide reaching discussion also covered how large brands are adopting and thinking about location-based services. The short answer is that they're interested and allocating budget, but…
I moderated a panel at the Geo-Loco conference in San Francisco yesterday on the subject of monetizing LBS. At the session titled "How to Make Money From Location Based Services," the panel riffed on evolving user behavior for mobile local…
Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson keynoted today's Geo-Loco conference in San Francisco, sharing his thoughts on what technologies and business models excite him from an investment perspective. The wide-ranging presentation ended on the idea of monetizing location-based services like Foursquare,…
Robert Scoble kicked off today's Geo-Loco Conference in San Francisco by claiming we're in the third stage of the web. This is a claim he's made before, but today angled it as a cautionary tale for the early leaders in any given…
Last year we broke a story about Skype's new initiative with local pay-per-call. Given its half a billion global users, the company began to monetize the calls made to businesses, large and small. These calls usually cost the user, but…
In case you missed them, here are a few headlines and links to recent posts on our Mobile Local Media blog. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed here, and the e-mail alert here. -- Op Ed: Why Apple…
Sometimes I like to invent words. In the previous post we talked about "check-in fraud" (no, not check fraud). I'm not sure if this term has been coined before, but I think it's a good way to start describing a…
Today I had the chance to talk to Kent Lindstrom, CEO of LBS start-up PlacePop. The company is building mobile loyalty card apps to reward users who visit local businesses, and allow those merchants to drive foot traffic. Think of…
By now, you've probably heard about Aaron Sorkin's film "The Social Network" about the inception and rise of Facebook. It stars Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg and is set to release Oct. 1. It looks to be part historical/biopic, part commentary…
By now, you've probably heard about Aaron Sorkin's film "The Social Network" about the inception and rise of Facebook. It stars Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg and is set to release Oct. 1. It looks to be part historical/biopic, part commentary…
Recently on TechCrunch.tv, former scientist turned hedge fund manager, turned author, Andy Kessler picked "voice" as the next big area of innovation. Among other things he argues (in adjacent video segments) that screens aren't intuitive, and we're moving toward interfaces…
It's no secret that "apps vs. mobile Web" is one of the heated debates in mobile development circles. This is also one of the points of friction in the growing battle between Google and Apple. Apple is pushing for an app-centric…
In case you missed them, here are a few headlines and links to recent posts on our Mobile Local Media blog. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed here, and the e-mail alert here. -- Big Box, Still a Ways to Go…
