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Four Hyperlocal Trends to Watch in 2013

By on January 3, 2013 in New business models, Trends

2012′s rush to capture the hyperlocal audience has begun to wane as the reality sets in that while the online SMB market is huge and untapped, it remains hard to get those mom and pop outfits to spend money on newfangled marketing methods. Last year’s intense start-up activity has pointed to four trends going into [...]

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How to become a first time online entrepreneur

By on February 22, 2012 in New business models, Technology, Trends, Venture Capital

The biggest occupational trend in the restructuring of the economy has been the newly minted entrepreneur. The media regales us with stories about the new startup incubators like Y Combinator, and the success stories of their progeny. All roads to developing a new business point to leveraging the Internet with some sort of social, commercial [...]

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The Shared Economy is Local

By on February 13, 2012 in Hyperlocal, New business models, Trends

The new shared economy being ushered in by startups like Airbnb, Relayrides and Toolspinner is creating new marketplaces where locals can rent their own rooms, cars and tools to their neighbors. Coined “collaborative consumption“, this new trend enables the efficient consumer sharing of resources and goods that are used on occasion as an alternative to outright ownership and [...]

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Jeff Jarvis broaches the subject of Realtors as Community Media Hubs

By on January 16, 2012 in Breaking News, Hyperlocal, Social Media, Trends

Last week at Inman Connect, a real estate technology conference, Jeff Jarvis discusses two ideas we believe in: 1) Real estate professionals can leverage their networks to become hyperlocal media resources. And by doing so, they benefit from building the community networks they need to source referrals for their real estate business. 2) Real estate [...]

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Six trends impacting hyperlocal in 2012

By on December 24, 2011 in Hyperlocal, Local advertising, New business models, Social Media, Trends

Here are six trends in 2012 that will impact hyperlocal media and business models. This was originally published at Street Fight last week. 1. Cross platform conversations Livefyre and Disqus show glimpses of how conversations can move from Facebook and Twitter to online media and blog commentary. Local conversations happening on social media, especially Facebook, [...]

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Twylah, Twitter, News and SEO

By on October 17, 2011 in Advertising, Breaking News, Hyperlocal, Marketing, New business models, Social Media, Trends, Web tools

Twylah is a service that aggregates a Twitter feed and compiles the articles they link into a Flipboard like display.   Many reviewers have explained the mechanics of Twylah in far more detail than I can: Robert Scoble: “Twylah lets media brands and celebrities monetize their Twitter stream” Neal Schaffer: “Twitter SEO? Think Twylah“ We’ve [...]

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Five reasons why traditional media advertising revenue is sloping towards zero

By on September 12, 2011 in Advertising, Hyperlocal, Local advertising, Mass Media, New business models, Newspapers, Publishing, Social Media, Trends

Journalists continue to search for a viable business model that supports online hyperlocal publications, but they won’t ever reach the threshold of revenues to maintain operations if they rely solely on traditional advertising fees from local merchants. That doesn’t mean local advertising is also poised to fall off a cliff. On the contrary, BIA/Kelsey states [...]

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Hyperlocal Media as a Community Service

By on August 21, 2011 in Advertising, Hyperlocal, Local advertising, New business models, Newspapers, Publishing, Social Media, Trends

My article “Hyperlocal as Community Service Media” on Streetfight discusses why building local media resources to serve the community makes sense. Creating local media is no longer the province of media companies, curation and aggregation tools make it easy for anybody to develop a simple local media resource that maintains itself 24×7. The disruptive concept [...]

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Hyperlocal media as a free community service could disrupt advertising models

By on July 7, 2011 in Advertising, Breaking News, Hyperlocal, Local advertising, New business models, Newspapers, Publishing, Social Media, Trends

The classic, and perhaps only business model supporting hyperlocal journalistic efforts like Patch.com and other local media is local advertising. On StreetFightMag.com last week, Ted Mann, Digital Development Director for Gannett NJ, discusses why Gannett’s hyperlocal experiment InJersey.com failed. The main and obvious reason is simply local advertising cannot adequately cover expenses. So… What if [...]

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Social travel – how Airbnb changes hospitality, even real estate

By on June 6, 2011 in Facebook, New business models, Real Estate, Social Commerce, Social Media, Social networking, Trends

Airbnb, according to Techcrunch and others, is planning a mega-round raise at a $1 billion+ valuation, and validated social travel in one swoop. It redefines what a “hotel room” is, even one year ago the only viable short term rental space for the masses. Airbnb allows anybody to rent out living space – a refurbished basement, [...]

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