Zoom Media and Tiger Schulmann’s Forge Digital Signage Partnership
Tiger Schullman’s no longer focuses solely on karate. The company has expanded into mixed martial arts and place-based digital media. Tiger Schulmann’s recently signed a deal with Zoom Media & Marketing, a leader in the emerging digital out-of-home media sector, to bring third-party advertising to all of the company’s locations. Zoom will operate a digital [...]
Welcome new LR writer David Weinfeld
One LR Plaza adds another floor this week, dedicated to covering the great digital outdoors. David Weinfeld joins the blogging team here, and he is going to cover an important, non-traditional space we all need to know more about. David is a principal in The Preset Group, a consultancy focused on digital signage, digital out-of-home [...]
Patch to launch ‘hundreds’ of local sites
AOL’s network of local news sites, Patch.com, is planning to expand from 30 to “hundreds” of sites this year, reports Silicon Alley Insider, which sites an internal memo. The memo said the goal is “to be leaders in one of the most promising ‘white spaces’ on the Internet.” Patch currently has sites in cities and [...]
Shopping walks at the Olympics – on your iPhone
Thousands of tourists are wandering the streets of Vancouver these days – many of them for the first time. How are they finding information on local sites of interest and, more importantly, where the most interesting shopping can be found?
One option is a new iPhone app called Chicwalks which positions itself as a personal tour guide of the nine most interesting shopping districts in Vancouver. “Ms. Chic,” the app’s avatar, leads you from one area to the next with informational overviews and specific retail information such as hours and location. The information is supplied by city shopping experts who are former journalists or local business people and the information is updated weekly. In addition to Vancouver, it appears the app will be expanding to Paris and San Francisco next.
Apple negotiating with publishers over iPad
Apple plans to include newspapers and magazines in its new iBookstore, and Steve Jobs has personally visited several large publishers to negotiate a subscription model, reports the Financial Times. The sticking points revolve around revenue, of course, as well as consumer data. Reports FT.com: “Apple’s history of sharing limited consumer information with partners beyond sales [...]
Local businesses flocking to Facebook
Social media giant Facebook continues to grow larger than anyone thought possible, and buried in the last round of stats is this important tidbit, thanks to InsideFacebook: Pages that Facebook defines as local businesses went from 700,000 actives to 1.5 million (since December). In other words, local businesses comprised half of the overall increase in [...]
Android Shipping 60,000 Handsets per Day
MobileCrunch reports Android continues to grow quickly. Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) at Barcelona Mobile World Congress just disclosed an interesting fact: Google and their hardware partners are now shipping 60,000 Android handsets each day. That works out to about 22 million handsets a year.
Flash Coming to Android and Palm Before Q3
Adobe Flash 10.1 will be debuting on Android and palm smartphones in Q1 or Q2 of 2010. This opens up mobile development to the broad audience of Flash developers. What is noticeable by its absence in this announcement is any mention of the Flex development kit.
KLAS-TV to roll out hyperlocal network in Las Vegas
The Las Vegas CBS affiliate has inked a deal with Datasphere to launch a network of neighborhood news sites in the Las Vegas area. KLAS and its website LasVegasNow.com is one of the first to employ Datasphere’s LocalNet product outside of Fisher Broadcasting, which is an investor in the hyperlocal platform company. Datasphere has launched 160 neighborhood sites to date, providing technology and sales infrastructure to go along with coverage from the TV stations. Click below for the press release…
‘Nashville is Talking’ no more
Nashville is Talking, one of the earliest (if not the earliest) examples of a station partnering with its local blogosphere, has closed down. The site was started in 2005, when WKRN’s then-General Manager Mike Sechrist hired local blogger Brittney Gilbert to staff the original site. The move was, as near as we know, unprecedented. At [...]
‘Buzz This’ button appears on HuffPo
There’s now a simple way to share stories from the Huffington Post on Google Buzz. HuffPo has added a button, right next to its Facebook and Twitter buttons, that makes sharing on Buzz one-click. It’s probably not the only example, but it’s the first I’ve seen. Good thinking. Update: As I wrote, I’m sure the [...]
Augmented reality Valentines Day cards
We gave one of our kids an “augmented reality card” for Valentine’s Day, and it was a big hit. You take the card, go to the Hallmark site, download a bit of software and hold up your card to the webcam to see the 3D-like video. Check out the video below to see how they [...]
Lost Notes: Food, Google Buzz, Olympic Hyperlocalism
Lost in the pile this past week: The future of hyperlocal food journalism (The Faster Times) What journalists should know about Google Buzz (editorsweblog.org) How the Olympics can help a hyperlocal news site grow (OJR)
Local fashion news site raises seed money
Refinery29, currently a local news site for New York fashion, has raised money so it can expand into three more cities this year. TechCrunch, which calls Refinery29 “DailyCandy meets Style.com” reports the site is also going to use the money to build an e-commerce offering to sell some of the fashions it reports on. According [...]
Colorado Springs gets new hyperlocal “Fresh Ink”
The Colorado Springs Gazette is rebooting its CJ, hyperlocal initiative with a new series of sites called “Fresh*Ink.” The brand – markedly different from the newspaper’s brand-extension site, is divided into 16 neighborhoods. Gazette writer Bill Vogrin quotes one of the users of Fresh*Ink: Ted Robertson is one of the 1,000 or so registered members [...]
Village Voice Media invests in LikeMe
Village Voice Media has made a habit of reaching beyond its print heritage while charting its future. That reach extended quite a bit farther this week with the announcement that the company participated in a $3.1 million round of financing for LikeMe, a social recommendation startup. LikeMe bills itself as “your own personal tour guide” [...]
Vikings fans try to woo Brett Favre with digital billboard
Talk about a targeted marketing effort. In a powerful display of outdoor advertising’s strength as a hyperlocal communications platform, fans of Brett Favre have purchased space on a digital billboard to woo the 40-year-old quarterback to return to the Minnesota Vikings. The billboard is located near Brett Favre’s home in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Its message reads, ”Hey [...]
Fwix Enhances API to Target Hyperlocal Movement
Fwix, a startup focused on the delivery of real-time, local news, just announced an integral update to its API. The Company’s API has been modified to include a heavier focus on hyperlocal news. In aggregating the most relevant news articles and blog posts around a specific location, Fwix gives third party web publishers the opportunity [...]
