No one talks much about certain topics after public crashes -- even when the opportunity remains clear. Hyperlocal is one of these. TBD.com in Washington, D.C., crashed last February, and there is a lot of speculation that Patch.com has become…
One of our big complaints against hyperlocal sites is they haven’t really invested in the commercial lifeblood of their community. They’re more like the (almost totally irrelevant) equivalent of a public access cable TV channel. That’s why we like the…
We’ve liked the idea of an ad network that makes it easy for place bloggers, local news sites and others to combine their audiences for advertisers wanting to target on a hyperlocal basis. The Sacramento Press has been working on…
The appeal of real-time promotions allowing SMBs to add or update a sale or special offer on the fly is fairly apparent. It is a segment that’s been chased after by such players as Google, Yext and others. Add Chalkboard…
Ease of transaction, rewards and “exclusives” will be key to the next generation of deals, and the credit card companies are determined to play a major role. MasterCard is working with NextJump for a special rewards programs, and has a…
Pixelfish, armed with $3.5 million round of new capital raised since October, is evolving its model from a white-label provider of affordable SMB video to a destination site for SMB offers. Today, it announced that it has acquired Steve Espinosa’s…
When hyperlocal zeroes in on local marketplaces, it makes a lot more sense to me. Witness ShopBuffalo, an attractive new marketplace from The Buffalo News launched as a companion to Buffalo.com. The site has partnered with ShopCity and Hero, a…
Q&A sites like Answers.com, Yahoo Answers and ChaCha have been around for a while. They generate huge amounts of traffic because they create millions of pages that target common (and not-so-common) search queries like "how tall is justin beiber?" And…
What do you do to keep your customer after your deal of the day runs? That’s a big question for tens of thousands of SMBs -- many of which have used deal a day as a loss leader and have…
Gannett announced during its earnings call yesterday that it is now producing 264 hyperlocal neighborhood sites in 10 markets. This includes the recent addition of 30 hyperlocal neighborhoods in Sacramento. The hyperlocal neighborhoods, produced in conjunction with DataSphere, have put…
In December, we discussed the implications of Groupon's pact with public Wi-Fi network provider JiWire as a potentially significant next step for social commerce -- hyperlocal group buying that leverages geotargeting to serve nearby deals to connected customers. The partnership has…
I take great delight in the Carlsbad Patch updates on my smartphone every morning. And the Fwix local app on my iPad. But why do I feel they are my “guilty pleasures”? Because there is a rap out there that…
Local and vertical content is eagerly sought by national players, from The New York Times to Yahoo, MSN/Bing to AOL. Now, Thompson Reuters is leading the local, vertical charge for wire services. In an aggressive push to lure traditional U.S. media…
While 2010 has been lauded as "the year of local," it has also seen an influx of interest and spending by national brands to drive neighborhood-level store traffic. These initiatives have taken diverse (and sometimes highly publicized) forms: Gap's deal-a-day offer…
TBD.com, the Washington, D.C., hyperlocal news site branding the online operations of Allbritton Communication' WJLA-TV and Newschannel 8 under the TBD umbrella, is tabling its local ad network, citing limited advertiser interest. The site currently has agreements with more than…
There is a lot going on in online media on the East Coast evidenced by the panel on geolocation here at the Internet Summit in Raleigh, North Carolina, sponsored by TechMedia and Southern Capital Ventures. Geolocation continues to be major…
CityGrid Media (formerly Citysearch) will extend its paid base of 800,000 advertisers across thousands of neighborhood news pages, courtesy of a display advertising deal with Outside.in. The two companies have been quietly conducting pilot tests of custom ads in “a…
One of the big hopes for local this year is ... national. As local targeting tools get more granular, there has been an upsurge in national/local advertisers, especially as they focus on touching consumers on the local purchase level. Gannett…
Since its origin as an exclusively online newspaper drawing together the work of dozens of community blogs and contributors, The Sacramento Press has since diversified well beyond its pure publisher roots, complementing its core with a local advertising network, a daily…
AOL is taking the plunge into the competitive deal-a-day space, launching Wow! as an integrated deals sites under the larger brand that will serve "your bargain of choice" from both local and national offers. Increasingly, group buying offers are sold…
