The Local Life

So many people out there have heard of foursquare and are checking in to places like crazy. Some earning badges, some gaining valuable rewards at their favorite places. If you haven’t heard of foursquare, read some more about it over on foursquare.

2 Users Were Checked In to Uncommon Grounds

Basically foursquare is a service that allows users to “Check In” at different places, and keep track of where they have been. Users can become the “Mayor” of a business or place by checking in there more often than anyone else. We are choosing to add this data to all of the venues, or locations, that match up with our database. So when you see “This Business on Foursquare” it means that users have checked in there and you will see 3 pieces of information: the “Mayor,” Total Check Ins and Here Now. If you see a little crown next to an image and someones name, that person is the “Mayor” of this location, the total Check Ins represents the total number of times that users have checked in to the location, and lastly “Here Now” shows if any users are currently checked in to this location.  Here is an example (of our favorite coffee shop in Saratoga) and a screenshot:

As we match more venues to our database, we will begin to show some very interesting stats we are gathering about who checks in to each one of our cities, and where people are checking in most often and what locations people are currently checked in.  Foursquare likens themselves to “ a cross between a friend-finder, a social city-guide, and a game that rewards you for doing interesting things” and we think thats pretty cool, so we’ll help you find out whats going on in real time in our cities, and maybe even get you into Foursquare itself.

In our never ending effort to create a better user experience for our business owners and managers, we have launched a handy feature that allows you share events on your business calendar directly to Facebook and Twitter as you are adding them. No extra steps, no special codes, no copy and paste - just add a message if you’d like and select the accounts you’d like to post to.

On Facebook, the events you post show up as an actual event with the date and time, and include an image or a message if you like. On Twitter the post will add a short-url to whatever message you add to the post. Its all there in one step, and its quick and easy. For more details on how this works visit: http://support.thelocallife.com/entries/201917-post-your-events-to-facebook

Next up is that moon elevator everyones been talking about :)

The Local Life Platform has added 45 new customers to our site in Providence, Rhode Island over the past 6 weeks breaking sales records for the young company. Thats almost 1 new customer per day.

“The success being seen in Providence is a great example of how well an integrated sale works for small businesses.” said The Local Life President & Founder Jamie Hutson. “Small businesses need an easy tool to manage all their social media and online communications. We’re able to deliver that combined with a great local media they are already using.” Since adding new features that enable business owners to post events to Facebook, Twitter and to search engines like Google and Yahoo in one simple step dozens of businesses have signed up for the service.

The Local Life’s new strategy of partnering with local publishing companies looking for intelligent and effective online offerings for their small business customers has proven to be very successful so far, combining the customers and media reach of the local publisher with a cutting edge technology platform. In the coming weeks, The Local Life expects to make announcements about new feature sets, and new partners going live.

For information or media inquiries please contact Jamie Hutson at jamie@thelocallife.com.

Many local businesses now have a Facebook Fan page where they can reach out to existing fans and friends who are already using Facebook. There are of course, 500 million some odd people on Facebook now so thats a lot of people to reach out to. For many business owners and managers Facebook has become a second, third and sometimes fourth place to monitor and manage - which means they are running short on time. One common theme we all hear from our customers is that they don’t have enough time to do all this updating.

Well our goal here is to make our customers lives’ easier, and with this release we are doing just that. After a short set up, that literally takes 30 seconds, users can update their Facebook Fan Page with one click, whether its promoting an event, sharing an article they published or just giving a shout about their business. And most impressively, with the existing Twitter integration, business owners can now share updates and links about their business on Twitter and Facebook at the same time, from one simple dashboard. Post and share your information with millions of users on Facebook and Twitter with one click.

Currently this is only live in Providence and Saratoga, but we will be releasing it across the network over the next 7 days. We are working hard to make the best user interface available to you and will be rolling out several improvements in this system as we get feedback from you. So please if you have questions or comments please let us know, you can Ping us on Twitter @thelocallife or reach us by email.

Thanks so much,

- Jamie

Deal marks key milestone for the capital region company and represents “perfect marriage” between traditional media and new media companies.

Saratoga Springs, NY, February 12, 2010—The Local Life, an internet pioneer that owns hyper-local web sites in 8 east coast cities, has announced a new partnership with Providence Media, a rapidly expanding Rhode Island-based company that publishes 5 regional lifestyle magazines. The partnership provides Providence Media with a turn key web solution while providing The Local Life sales and marketing support in Providence.

The companies are joining forces to provide a dynamic, interactive and hyper-local website for the city of Providence. Sales support will be supplied by Providence Media while the technical expertise will come from The Local Life.

The Local Life has been providing internet based city guides since the launch of its flagship site, www.theSaratogaLife.com, in 2005. In 2009 the company released a new propietary local advertising platform that provides users and advertisers the best hyper-local content and functionality available. The companies propietary advertising platform is used by hundreds of restaurants, hotels, retailers and event venues across its 8 city network.

In late 2009 the Saratoga Springs, NY based company embarked on a strategy of developing partnerships with local media companies to co-develop the best local sites possible. This deal is the first under the new strategy.

“We offer newspapers and other local media companies a compelling way to increase revenues and become an even more important part of the communities they serve.” said George Ehinger Managing Director of The Local Life. “We provide a technology platform that provides small local businesses a really dynamic advertising option that existing newspaper, TV and magazine sites don’t offer. By partnering with local media companies advertisers have a one stop shop to reach valuable consumers in both print and online.”

One of the most enticing elements of The Local Life’s platform is the ability for advertisers to manage their presence on the site from a password protected dashboard. From their dashboard advertisers can upload coupons, events, photos, press releases, specials, menus and even post to their twitter or facebook account. The self service aspect makes the site more powerful for the advertiser and reduces strain on the sales staff.

About The Local Life

The Local Life has developed the worlds best local advertising platform. Currently operational in 8 east coast cities, The Local Life advertising platform is used by hundreds of restaurants, retailers, hotels and event venues to dynamically communicate events, press releases, specials, and coupons to visitors and locals alike.

About Providence Media

Providence Media has been producing free regional lifestyle magazines for 35 years, starting with the publication of East Side Monthly in 1975. Providence Monthly, the flagship title for the media group, was added in 1997. The real growth, however, has occurred in the past two and a half years. Providence Media has launched three successful new magazines: SO Rhode Island, which covers the southern part of Rhode Island from East Greenwich to Watch Hill; The Bay, a monthly publication that covers the East Bay from East Providence to Portsmouth and into Southeastern Massachusetts; and In Providence, the publishing group’s first foray into the tourist market. With combined monthly circulation of over 70,000, the media group has more than doubled its size in the past two years.

For more information contact George Ehinger, Managing Director of The Local Life: george@thelocallife.com, or 415-713-4559.

Providence, RI, February 1, 2010 — Providence Media, a rapidly expanding Rhode Island-based company that publishes five publications, announces a new partnership with TheProvidenceLife.com, an internet company with operations in Connecticut, New York and the Washington D.C. area. Both companies are joining forces to provide a dynamic, interactive and hyperlocal website for the city of Providence. Sales support will be supplied by Providence Media while the technical expertise will come from The Local Life, which currently operates websites in eight East Coast cities.

Providence Media has been producing free regional lifestyle magazines for 35 years, starting with the publication of East Side Monthly in 1975. Providence Monthly, the flagship title for the media group, was added in 1997. The real growth, however, has occurred in the past two and a half years. Providence Media has launched three successful new magazines: SO Rhode Island, which covers the southern part of Rhode Island from East Greenwich to Watch Hill; The Bay, a monthly publication that covers the East Bay from East Providence to Portsmouth and into Southeastern Massachusetts; and In Providence, the publishing group’s first foray into the tourist market. With combined monthly circulation of over 70,000, the media group has more than doubled its size in the past two years.

Originally launched in 2007, TheProvidenceLife.com has been redesigned to incorporate the new content accessibility while adding an interactive, user-friendly, advertiser-driven platform that has proven successful in Stamford and New Haven, Connecticut, Saratoga Springs, New York and four cities in the Baltimore-Washington area. The site highlights the arts, entertainment, shopping, and dining scenes in Providence.

For additional information on the new joint venture, contact Jeanette St. Pierre, Publishing Director for Providence Media: jeanette@providenceonline.com or 401-521-0023; or George Ehinger, Managing Director of The Local Life: george@thelocallife.com.

In our quest to bring you more tools, and a better user experience, we are announcing two new features this weekend, both of which are now live. The first is a more advanced way for users to track views of their business and event pages. Its a simple addition that allows you to track, by day and by month, how many people are looking at your page. Not overly exciting but we think it will help you track what is happening on your page.

Second, and much more exciting is the new Fans feature. If you use Facebook or Twitter, you are probably familiar with “Friends” & “Followers”; well for The Local Life, “Fans” is our version of those two things. Becoming a fan of a business will soon allow you to follow any updates a business makes to their page, like adding a new coupon or event. Once we have a few fans, we will begin to show the businesses with the most Fans on the homepage, and within each Category.

We will also be introducing some new functionality for business owners around Fans, which we will update you on fully when we go live with them, but we think they are pretty exciting as well.

For now, log in and become a Fan of your favorite business. Its easy - just click onto the “Become a Fan” tab on a Business Page click the button; simple  Who doesn’t like simple?

Last week we released some very exciting new features, mostly around the ability for anyone to add a blog to their business, or to their user page, or just in general. We talk to a lot of businesses that would like to start a blog, but don’t know how or where to start. Well like everything else we do, we strive to make it easy for businesses to spread the word about their specials and features. Now we have made it easy for them to keep a blog, which they can then feature on their business page if they own a business, or simply share with the local world on the homepage.

Blogs are fun, they bring new things to light that you would never find otherwise. We are looking forward to seeing what the world comes up with, and sharing it all with you!