Google Empowers Users, Creates New Headaches for Businesses

Google is helping local businesses by encouraging more user-generated content. In theory this is good. But more content does not always mean more high-quality content.

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The Near Memo, Episode 14

Apple Ad Tracking Opt-in at 4% in US is much lower than anticipated; Shopify focuses on helping SMB be better & retain customer relationships & gain access to better rates and capital; Facebook Neighborhoods, a NextDoor clone, is likely to be worse due to poor moderation

Neighbors Like SMBs, Section 230, Yelp Tools Push Self-Service

Nextdoor: Preference for SMBs Growing Nextdoor released a new report, showcasing attitudes and behaviors of its audience ("consumers 16-64 who have used the Nextdoor app/platform in the last month"

The Latest News from Across the Local Digital Ecosystem

Review Fraud, K-Recovery, Context Is King for Mobile

Leak Shows Massive Scale of Review FraudThe scale of the review fraud problem online is not precisely known, except that it's big. This is especially true for destinations like Google

Only 4% Opting-in, FB's Nextdoor Clone, Online Impulse Buyers

IDFA: Consumers Saying "No" to Tracking According to a new report from Flurry Analytics (Verizon Media), based on roughly 10 days of data, the iOS 14.5 opt-in rate for

Facebook Shuns Trump, Subs vs. Ads, Peak Social?

Facebook's Trump Ban: Who Gets to Speak Online? The world's most important political debates are now happening on social media. Over the past several weeks, for example, Indian Prime Minister

VZ Sells Yahol, Amazon Liability, No Herd Immunity

Yahoo's Death By 1000 Cuts Continues with PE Sale Verizon is selling its media and ad-tech assets, AOL and Yahoo, to Apollo Global Management for $5 billion. The company paid

SMB Commerce, Hybrid Shoppers, Yelp Comeback?

SMB Websites and Commerce Now Inseparable Mailchimp started as an email platform and moved into "marketing automation." It has now become an all-inclusive SMB SaaS platform for digital marketing. The

Earnings Blowouts, Google Owns Local Reviews, No Bribes for IDFA Tracking

Apple Tracking Earnings: MSFT, Shopify, Facebook, Apple & Google BeatIt's a big earnings week. Microsoft and Shopify reported strong revenue growth. Shopify was described as a "blowout" (up 110% YoY)

Google Food Disruption, Track or Pay Up, Lord & Taylor Back Online Only

Google Poised to Disrupt the $27B Food Delivery BusinessGoogle has become a potentially disruptive player in the multi-billion dollar food delivery business. One estimate of the market's current value is

Apple Maps Reviews, FTC Kneecapped by SCOTUS, Near-Me Getaways

Native Apple Maps Ratings Coming Soon to USIn September 2020, it became clear that Apple Maps was going to start collecting its own user photos and local recommendations (thumbs up/

Zagat Reborn, Apple Opt-in Date, Amazon UK Salon

Zagat Relaunches with New Scoring, Emphasis on Photos The Zagat restaurant guide was first published in 1979 by Nina and Tim Zagat. After many years as a print publication, its

Most Brands' Local Fail, WP FLoC Blocking, Amazon Local Services

Most Franchise Brands Local Marketing Laggards SOCi's recently published "Localized Marketing Benchmark Report" (reg. req'd) scores 275 franchise brands on local marketing maturity and effectiveness. The study uses a range

Booming Retail, Amazon's Prime Moat, Substack Local

Stim-Driven Retail Booming, Online and OffMarch retail sales grew by almost 10%, driven by government stimulus checks, vaccinations and increasing consumer confidence. New jobless claims were also lower than expected

Facebook SMB Survey, Amazon Aplenty, House of Sport Experience

FB Survey: SMBs Remain Fragile As Economy ReopensA recent report (.pdf) from Facebook chronicles the challenges SMBs faced in 2020 and continue to face. Despite positive economic signals suggesting strong

Microsoft's Nuance, Apple's iFrankenstein Box, Rep to CX

MSFT Buys Speech Pioneer Nuance for $16 billion. Announced today, the Nuance acquisition becomes Microsoft's second largest after LinkedIn ($27 billion) in 2016. While it's possible Nuance could be deployed

Swyft Cribs Prime, Uneven SMB Recovery, Apple vs. Google for Gen Z Love

Swyft Wants to 'Democratize' Same-Day DeliverySwyft has created a "B2B managed-marketplace solving for affordability in last-mile logistics." Its objective is to bring Amazon-like same-day delivery to more retailers – to "democratize"

Let's Get 'Phygital,' Opt-in Coming, Yahoo Says Goodbye Answers

Google: Local and Digital Now Joined at the HipIn a blog post Google confirms what nearly everyone in local has known for years: the web drives trillions of dollars in

The Latest News from Across the Local Digital Ecosystem

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