by Pat Kitano on December 29, 2010 in Advertising, Hyperlocal, Local advertising, Social Commerce, Social Media, Trends
Yesterday’s news of Groupon’s massive $950 million financing round wasn’t unexpected, and just confirms their intent to build a sales army to dominate SMB business in the same way Yellow Pages held sway over local advertisers in the 20th Century. Morgan Brown explains the new Groupon strategy well: Groupon knows that in order to grow [...]
by Pat Kitano on December 21, 2010 in Advertising, Hyperlocal, Local advertising, Social Commerce, Social Media, Trends
One year ago, I listed ten media predictions for 2010. Here’s an update. Many of my predictions are still work in progress: 1) Community engagement will become the driver of new local media. One definitive result: 2010 brought the expansion of AOL’s Patch across almost 200 cities, each with a salaried managing editor. It’s important [...]
by Pat Kitano on December 15, 2010 in Social Media
Another example of closed door politicking going by the wayside. All competitions with international judging need to disclose judge scores, particularly those dealing with subjective cultural and artistic sensibilities. The organizer for the prestigious International Frederyk Chopin Competition held every five years decided to disclose the judges’ scores a month later. And even better, the [...]
by Pat Kitano on December 8, 2010 in Social Commerce, Uncategorized
With Groupon currently the poster child for social commerce, there’s a lack of true social interactions in the current nascent state of social commerce beyond “sharing” the deal with your buds. The group buying concept is essentially another ploy to get folks to buy something in the traditional e-commerce sense. How do deals become social? [...]
by Pat Kitano on December 2, 2010 in Social Commerce
The consolidation of the group buying systems continues: LivingSocial (www.livingsocial.com) has secured a $175 million investment from Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN). LivingSocial has also secured an additional $8 million investment from Lightspeed Venture Partners. LivingSocial will use this investment to maintain a steady drumbeat of worldwide launches and overall business growth while continuing to serve more [...]
by Pat Kitano on December 1, 2010 in Advertising, Hyperlocal, Local advertising, Slideshows, Social Commerce, Trends
The next phase of Group Buying Systems View more presentations from Pat Kitano. Groupon announced its new Deal Feed that allows consumer to customize and monitor and filter the types of deals and merchants they want to track. The Deal Feed works in coordination with the new Groupon Stores product so that consumers can “follow” [...]
by Pat Kitano on November 18, 2010 in Uncategorized
Innovation has gone into overdrive as Facebook, Google and Yahoo! serially announce a plethora of innovative products every week. This week brings: Facebook messaging – social email that allows Facebook to access all their emails without ever leaving Facebook. Google Hotpot – a recommendation engine associated with Google Places that roams right into Yelp territory, [...]
by Pat Kitano on November 18, 2010 in Twitter
“Twitter : One-to-many real time broadcast” from Mary Meeker, Web 2.0 presentation, November 16, 2010 Twitter has evolved into an efficient online broadcast media that it was destined to be. In fact, Twitter has become a broadcast platform akin to any communication media – i.e. radio or TV. It’s a utility. It’s the reason why [...]
by Pat Kitano on November 4, 2010 in Advertising, Hyperlocal, Local advertising, Mass Media, Social Media, Trends
Facebook announced yesterday that businesses can add deals and rewards for their customers who check in through Facebook Places. The impact on local advertising is huge: 1. Deals will be everywhere The “Deal” becomes the currency of local advertising because it is performance based, efficient for reaching the customer and isn’t burdened with the CPM-based [...]