Alert Blog Reviews

Search marketers are always interested in local marketing and search. It’s where the rubber meets the road for many businesses including the enterprise (i.e. big box stores) whose real representation of their brand is the local store that someone goes into to buy products. If the local experience is bad then the brand is bad in many consumers’ eyes. So getting down to the local level is critical for marketers especially in the age of continuing social media adoption and influence. Now there is local and there is hyperlocal. Hyperlocal is just as it implies it is getting down to the street level for reporting of local news and events. Noted hyperlocal blogger Matt McGee of hyperlocalblogger.com says this Hyperlocal blogging is writing about the streets where you live. It’s blogging about local news, local events, local businesses — anything that’s happening in your hometown, city, street, or neighborhood. Hyperlocal blogs often talk about things that traditional media ignores, the stuff that’s too small or not important enough to a wide range of people. Well, it appears that what traditional media ignores the VC and M & A crowd are finding interesting. According to theDeal.com While newspapers have been decimated by the economics transforming today’s media industry, Web sites that report news and deliver other content at the neighborhood, or “hyperlocal,” level, are bursting with life, with many of them becoming sought-after targets by big media and big tech companies. It is getting harder to ignore the concentration on the local level that is becoming one of the most important elements for B2C and some B2B online business success. The sound and fury around the mobile market with Google and Apple squaring off is just as much about local search as it is a device. The mobile device and its growth is perfectly suited for the hyperlocal crowd for both creating content and consuming it as well. Chris Brogan talks today about how interesting it would be to be able to geotarget outbound tweets to make sure the local interest of a tweet is not shared across a larger group that don’t have any access or real concern for the data. If you want to judge how big this is by the money it attracts thedeal.com tells us …hyperlocal startups continued to get funded. In December, Outside.in Inc., which pulls together neighborhood blogs and other local content, announced it had closed a $7 million Series B round of funding, led by existing investor Union Square Ventures, with participation from new investor Turner Broadcasting System Inc. As part of Turner’s investment, CNN.com will use Outside.in’s aggregation and curation tools to power hyperlocal news across all of its sites. The new round brings Outside.in’s total raised to $12 million. And let’s not forget FourSquare’s growing success Over the summer, one of the most competitive early-stage fundings the VC industry saw all last year was that of FourSquare Labs Inc., which encourages people to share their whereabouts from local restaurants and businesses via their mobile phones. Union Square and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventureswon the honor of funding FourSquare’s $1.35 million Series A, announced in September, with Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of Twitter Inc. and the mobile payments startup Square, serving as an angel investor in Foursquare. How are you and your business addressing the hyperlocal craze? If you aren’t is your competition getting involved? It could be that in the very near future the first to find a hyperlocal hook into a market will be the winner.

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Hyperlocal Being Targeted by M&A and VC Crowd

( via ) So, ever since I came back from Vegas, I have had a pretty bad head cold. But, I have been diligently applying my favorite remedy: Watching mindless YouTube videos! Seriously, it makes me feel better. I am not sure why, but I am sticking to it! One thing I have noticed is that the most popular videos have at least one of two things; authentic, original content, or very well polished and produced material. Basically, if the video has authentic, original content then it doesn’t really matter if it’s “put together” well, because the content alone will sell it. However, if you are trying to replicate something someone has already done, then you need to do it better than them, make sure that your presentation is polished and your delivery is spot on. Which brings us to the video above. Here we see employees at a Microsoft store dancing to Chris Brown’s “Forever”. This is an obvious attempt to ride on the popular Wedding Entrance meme that started this summer. Unfortunately, the content of this video isn’t authentic or original and it was put together pretty poorly. I mean, take a look at those buffoons! Their own customers are trying hard to ignore how awkward they look. This is the type of video I would normally find at failblog . So instead of creating a viral video that helps promote their brand, the only attention they get is snarky bloggers (like me) making fun of them! This same lesson can be applied outside of viral video. Take for example MySpace and Facebook. For a long time MySpace was the only mainstream social network. Because they had an original concept they didn’t have to worry about having a polished interface and enforcing tight security standards, and they didn’t. As a result, Facebook gained massive popularity over MySpace because they offered everything MySpace did plus a clean interface and a barrage of privacy options. So, to sum things up: When developing a product or a new idea ask your self, is this original? If the answer is no, then spend as much time on presentation and working out the kinks as possible.

Excerpt from:
Cup of Joe: How Not To Go Viral and Look Like an Idiot

In recent interviews, I’ve talked about the future of online reputation management. In that future, I see a desensitizing towards negative content found online by employers, parents, and schools. In essence, as more and more of us post content online, any embarrassing photo or rude remark will be brushed off, as we learn that we live in a transparent world. As the current generation of 18-24 year olds enter management, they will be more forgiving–having lived through that same era. Anyway, I expected this transformation of standards to take place slowly and organically. Well, that may change now that two sophomore girls are suing their school district for unfairly disciplining them for risqu é photos they posted to MySpace. The Huffington Post picks up the story: The girls, identified only by their initials in the suit, took the photos during a sleepover with friends before school started this summer and posted them on their MySpace pages, setting the privacy controls so only those designated as friends could view them…[the Principal] initially suspended both girls from all extracurricular activities for the year but reduced the penalty to 25 percent of fall semester activities after the girls completed three counseling sessions and apologized to the coaches board. The school wasn’t referenced in any of the MySpace entries, but the school has a policy that allows the Principal to take action against any student that “creates a disruptive influence on the discipline, good order, moral or educational environment” of the school. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has taken interest in this case and filed the suit on behalf of the girls–claiming the action violates their free speech rights and was humiliating. The ACLU will have an uphill battle winning this case, because the US Supreme Court has already ruled that students can be disciplined for activities outside of the school. The unclear part is whether the students’ actions are disruptive or harmful to the school. We’ll let you know as and when we see updates on this case. My guess is that it will be dropped–maybe with the school expunging the incident from the girls’ records. If not, and the ACLU wins, we may quickly get to the era of online reputation apathy–but by force, not progress. ( via )

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Teen Girls Sue School for Wrongful Discipline Over Risque MySpace Photos

For all of the drama and the back and forth of the Microsoft and Yahoo courtship from the summer it’s almost laughable to learn that the two still don’t have all the details ironed out yet. The deal that was originally supposed to be signed off on October 27th isn’t quite ready for the super huge pens that were used in the photo op pictures from July. We are now left to wonder what the heck wasn’t figured out before these two giants said “I do” in the summer. Yahoo tells about the delay in getting the scheduled signing done in an SEC filing that the Business Insider reports In their original July 29 agreement, Yahoo and Microsoft said they would sign finish negotiating the search deal by October 27. “But,” reads the filing, “given the complex nature of the transaction, there remain some details to be finalized.” “The parties are working diligently on finalizing the agreements, have made good progress to date, and have agreed to execute the agreements as expeditiously as possible.” You have to wonder what these details are exactly. What if there is a big “Ooooops!” discovered where something was not ‘ironed out’ in the original negotiations? I can’t imagine such a thing happening but stranger things happen every second of every day so why not? So what did Yahoo have to say on this one? “Microsoft and Yahoo! are committed to this agreement and believe this is a highly competitive deal that is good for consumers, advertisers and publishers. We have made good progress in finalizing the definitive agreements. Given the complex nature of this transaction there remain some issues that need some additional clarity and definitive details. So, the teams at Yahoo! and Microsoft are continuing to work on the remaining details, and we have mutually agreed to extend the period to negotiate and execute the agreement. We plan to do this as expeditiously as possible. Both companies are optimistic that we will be able to close this deal by early 2010.” Early 2010?! That’s not just missing a deadline that’s blowing past it and leaving it for dead. What would have been nice is if there was a definition on what early means. Of course, the longer it takes for the two sides to dot the I’s and cross the T’s the longer and more delayed the start of the regulatory process becomes thus possibly making the actual union even later than originally thought. So don’t get too worried about what will or won’t happen when this deal is finally put in place. Who knows the US may even have some kind of healthcare deal in place before that happens.

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Bingahoo Delayed a Month or Two (or More)?