Latest Hyperlocal News

Huffington Post today took one more step in its ongoing march for a wider international reach: it has now officially opened Le Huffington Post for business. This is not the first non-U.S. edition of the news site, but it is the first to produce the content in partnership with an established media organization—in this case, two: the Le Monde Group and Les Nouvelles Editions Indépendante.

Many local media companies now rely on a single sales force to sell both traditional and print advertising—but that might be a shortsighted strategy, says a new report from Borrell Associates. The company found major differences between companies that employ digital-only sales forces and those that instead employ a “digital first” strategy.

Today we know a bit more about how Groupon (NSDQ: GRPN) plans to extend its business opportunities in the years ahead: mobile services will be playing a key role, and so, it seems, will carriers.

Hispanics, according to Nielsen, have the second-highest penetration of smartphone usage among U.S. ethnic groups, and today brings news of a news app specifically targeting that demographic: Univision is launching its first news app, “Noticias Univision,” based on the broadcaster’s TV brand and website of the same name. It is also the latest example of a broadcaster tapping into the mobile market in a bid to extend its existing online and TV content businesses.

Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) Xfinity TV subscribers stymied by the lack of access to iPad app WatchESPN have relief in sight: a new multi-year, cross-platform deal between the Walt Disney Co. and the largest U.S. cable operator will open a lot of content doors, including access to current and upcoming authenticated products from ESPN, Disney and ABC (NYSE: DIS). It’s the first authentication deal for the Disney-ABC cable channels.

By now, much of the connected universe, and certainly all of technolphilia, is aware of Facebook’s IPO, which seeks to raise up to $5 billion (and perhaps eventually $10 billion) when its shares go public this spring. The net effect is a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion for the 8-year-old social network. Mining the ...

Business-to-business companies are catering to a growing crop of decision-makers who are turning to the Internet for purchase information according to data from Marin Software. The average cost per click in the B2B paid search space increased 29 percent from Q4 2010 to Q4 2011. According to additional data from Compete and Google, we’ll continue to ...

On yesterday’s AT&T earnings call, CEO Randall Stephenson opened the door to the possibility that the telecom giant would sell off its directories business. Here is what Stephenson said on yesterday’s earnings call: “That’s one area that we’re going to obviously take a very hard look at, and while I don’t want to give any indication ...

U.S. directory and local search player The Berry Co. has scooped up defunct search marketing firm WebVisible’s Geneva platform from a liquidator in the wake of that company’s collapse. “This acquisition will dramatically enhance our presence and capabilities in the digital local search space,” said John Fischer, interim president and CEO of TBC Holdings and Berry. ...

Shopkick, the location-based shopping app, announced today that it has more than 3 million active users since it launched over a year ago and that more than a billion of its in-app deals and offers have been viewed. Shopkick’s app communicates with a patent-pending device in stores, letting customers earn rewards just by strolling into ...

I am fairly certain that a class of local Pinters will begin to emerge who have followers and who specialize either in a city or a part of a city and, most likely, down to a specific specialty. And this will happen because Pinterest is an extension of blogging and tweeting, really. Lots of pins actually drive through to a blog post, in fact, so it’s already seen as a traffic augmentation vehicle. I see Pinterest getting integrated into social media dashboard tools that will make it easy for local merchants running Facebook pages to add a Pinterest stream to their arsenal.

Tim Armstrong was back out there defending Patch again this week. Elsewhere, researchers noted the rapidly growing influence of Pinterest, which is gaining on Twitter as a traffic driver. Over at Foodspotting, Alexa Andrzejewski corrects any misconceptions there might be that her company is just "Instagram" for food. Damian Radcliffe says LBS products "haven't quite lived up to the hype."

Hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan look at the latest SIRI competitor, Evi, the location tool LocalBeat in India, Groupon’s kiosk play, a great example of relevant and smart location-based mobile marketing by the First TransPennine Express, and Matt O’Leary from Shopcastr.

There are over 1500 daily dealers operating in Europe, and Stavros Prodromou, the conference's organizer, says that the event is meant to spur collaborations and partnerships between the various companies working in the space...

A roundup of today's big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...Mobile Ad Network Mojiva Reaches 1 Billion Devices (TechCrunch)...Gilt City Gets New Look -- Providers Members with Improved Shopping Experience (Daily Deal Media)...