Business and Marketing News
Living Social CEO and co-founder Tim O’Shaughnessy announced today on the company blog that he is stepping down. He will stay until a new CEO is found and installed – a process that he “hopes” will be completed during the first half of 2014. O’Shaughnessy previously worked at AOL, and transformed Living Social from its origins as a … Read more
Twitter has made a bold move to go beyond advertising by adding performance marketing to its portfolio via the purchase of CardSpring, the San Francisco-based startup. The acquisition price has not been announced. CardSpring had raised $10 Million since its launch in 2011. One of the big tech challenges in the payments space has been to remake … Read more
Company data such as customer lists, transaction records, location data, social media and customer behavior patterns often prove to be valuable assets. But for many companies, data is little more than an after-thought. What are the best practices for identifying, valuing, leveraging and protecting data assets? That’s the subject of “Data Leverage: Unlocking the Surprising Growth … Read more
Living Social CEO and co-founder Tim O’Shaughnessy announced today on the company blog that he is stepping down. He will stay until a new CEO is found and installed – a process that he “hopes” will be completed during the first half of 2014. O’Shaughnessy previously worked at AOL, and transformed Living Social from its origins as a … Read more
We like the idea of using corporations as a distribution base for media and services. In the 1990s, The Family Education Network built a great newsletter business distributed in corporate lobbies. The concept’s been widely extended with the addition of email and the ability to more effectively target employees based on different criteria. NextJump, for instance, … Read more
As traditional local media players begin to lose some of their prominence, the search for alternative local sales channels has become increasingly important. The channel currently being explored: payment processors, which normally focus on selling Point of Sales systems. Processors start out with a technological advantage; the “big data” from consumer purchases can help produce … Read more
You want vision? LevelUp CEO Seth Priebatsch says his loyalty/transaction marketing company will emerge as a partner for SMBs — think authentication, orders and refunds and analytics — in the same way that Facebook Connect is a partner for media sites. LevelUp, of course, doesn’t have the loyalty/transaction marketing space to itself. We are tracking more than 30 companies … Read more
We’ve always had “marketing” as a unique silo for SMBs. Now, a number of companies are looking at a bigger, more integrated picture that includes marketing and operations. It is Quikbook meets Amex meets Groupon. The idea is once you have a SMB account, work to extend that relationship. They don’t want to work with … Read more
Card Linked Offers (CLOs) represent a potentially rich opportunity for online and mobile promotions and loyalty. But a lot of work needs to be done before the segment gets seriously underway. Speaking at the inaugural conference of the CardlinX Association April 7 in Las Vegas, Microsoft GM of Local Advertising Erik Jorgensen noted there are significant opportunities to connect … Read more
Payment processors and related companies work with most SMBs and are increasingly seen as a potential sales channel for reaching them with additional services. This week, we talked with one processor, Boston-based Merchant Warehouse, about its efforts to leverage its base of 75,000 business customers beyond terminal sales. CEO Henry Helgeson told us the 15 year-old, … Read more