Amazon doesn't usually speak at industry gatherings. But that was before it needed to reach out to the advertising community to sell display ads on its sites, ads on Kindle, national and local offers on Kindle, and extend its promotional…
Our good friend and upcoming MLM SF speaker Tobias Dengel was featured on CNBC earlier this week, outside of Apple's WWDC conference. The CEO of WillowTree Apps was interviewed for his predictions on what Apple would announce. He was right…
Not to be cynical about it, but charity has always been great for business. "Charitable marketing," or "altruistic marketing," has been embraced by many of the leading brands, from McDonald's and Ben & Jerry's to the National Football League. It…
Constant Contact has made a really big bet on presence management with the acquisition today of SinglePlatform, a provider of a one-stop "write once, read everywhere" presence management network that provides parsed searching capabilities and services for 600,000 SMBs, including…
So where should a European local media company place its bets when looking across the spectrum of opportunities in social media, mobile and local online commerce? BIA/Kelsey announced today that it has joined forces with the European Association of Search…
Mobile local promotion and wallet services that marry offers to linked credit card accounts and track usage are proliferating. A partial roster of players includes Plum Rewards, MyFavEats, RewardLoop, AirPay and PunchCard. They're all fighting for a share of smartphone…
Elevation Partners' Roger McNamee -- friend of Bono's, the lead in the failed resurrection of Palm and a winner in the Facebook IPO to the tune of $1.5 billion -- is known as a contrarian thinker. He did not disappoint…
Loyalty and engagement programs are now flooding the local ecosystem. They see themselves as the next step up from daily deals. At the same time, they hope to be more effective than "buy 10 get one free punch cards," according…
Google Offers has just celebrated its first anniversary and now has a presence in 40 markets, says Group Products Manager Nitin Mangtini, who was speaking Tuesday at the Street Fight Summit West conference in San Francisco. Mangtini, who also spoke…
American Eagle Outfitters becomes the latest partner to launch Shopkick nationwide, including its Aerie locations, starting today. The announcement comes on the heels of Target's national rollout that we reported here. American Eagle Outfitters and Aerie shoppers will earn "kicks"…
Yellow Medya, Turkey's Yellow Pages publisher, announced a new partnership agreement today with TomTom Places. The Yellow Pages publisher will serve as the business listing and content provider to the navigation products supplier. In addition, Yellow Medya will serve as…
Repair.com launched its online repair scheduling tool today which allows potential customers to view and compare open appointments using data from its parent site, National Electronics Warranty, LLC. The new venture is an extension of its parent site that provides…
Zagat is Google's great equalizer against Yelp. Google has now demonstrated why it paid $151 million for Zagat last September by including Zagat, which formerly cost $4.95 a month (or $24.95 per year), as part of its new rollout of…
We just passed the one-month mark, in terms of days left until our big MLM San Francisco conference. Meanwhile, the program continues to get better. Last week we confirmed Groupon's Mihir Shah and American Express's David Yoo. It should be…
ScoutMob, the two-and-a-half-year-old mobile-centric deals company, has landed a new $3.25 million round to develop its technology base and add more markets. It is currently in 13 cities and has more than 1 million subscribers. The company, which had previously…
Target, one of the largest discount retailers in the U.S., announced today that it will now offer its guests the Shopkick app for their smartphones. When customers walk into their local Target store, they receive points known as "kicks." As…
Local display doesn’t get as much attention as search for SMBs, but we know that in many situations, it can complement search campaigns, or even produce better results. No one pushes harder on this than PaperG, which has developed a…
Are deals still being driven by shares, posts, likes and other social media features in an era of Groupon and LivingSocial Super Bowl ads? Yes, definitely, according to Second Street Media, which held a webinar with The Washington Post last…
The June calendar is definitely filling in. It is the most active month in memory. I’ll be attending five events -- three in San Francisco, two in San Diego. As Richard Rogers says: “June is bustin’ out all over.” In…
That was quick. Yahoo’s radical shift to a new Commerce/ Marketplaces strategy -- announced in mid April -- has abruptly ended with the resignation of CEO and former PayPal head Scott Thompson, and SVP Sam Shrauger, his PayPal colleague, who…
