Ever hear of cash mobs?

In a cash mob, a local store or restaurant is designated by the community as the recipient of a one day promotion where customers spend at least $20, using Twitter and other local media to broadcast the event. Cash mobs can also promote arts events, like youth symphonies, and causes like walk-a-thons. They are an impromptu, viral method for supporting local businesses and institutions, and enhance community spirit because it’s entirely cooperative. All cash mobs need are ringleaders.

You can find out more about cashmobs here:

Using Social Media to Mobilize a Local Community. Explains the history of the flash mob as precursor to cash mob.

How to set up a cashmob from the Cashmob blog. The blog also has a list of local Twitter feeds devoted to Cash Mob promotion.

As community service media, The Breaking News Network supports community organized CashMobs. Here’s how we can help:

We can retweet your cashmob announcements automatically! See our article “Why we want to retweet your tweets and get your word out“, and apply below so you can publicize your cash mob through our community Twitter feeds.

Second, contact us at thebreakingnewsnetwork@gmail.com … we can try to mobilize forces we have in each city to help make your cash mobs a success.

Street Fight is the most authoritative information and analysis about the innovation taking place in local digital advertising and tech. In just six weeks, you can participate directly in the conversation around this rapidly changing sector at Street Fight Summit West, an intensive one-day event taking place on June 5th at the Bently Reserve in San Francisco.

Specifically, we want you there to:

* Discuss the big ideas in hyperlocal with speakers from Yelp, Foursquare, Topix, Patch, Closely, Geoloqi, Swipely, SCVNGR/LevelUp, Group Commerce, Sacramento Press, Placecast, JiWire, and more.

* Network with others to form the partnerships and deals that drive this industry forward. Last year’s Summit included attendees from Tribune, Groupon, Yahoo, Gannett, Digital First, CBS Local Digital Media, Qualcomm, ScoutMob, Esri,News Corp, Retailigence, The Boston Globe, Locu, Reuters, New York Life, Hearst, Gilt Groupe, DataSphere, CityMaps, and many, many more. This year, so far, looks to be similar.

* Have a great time. Apparently, we know how to throw a good event. Last year’s reviews went like this: The “the best collection of brainpower in one room I’ve experienced so far. Great conversations, really good networking.” (Luke Stangel, Tackable). Also: “The caliber of people you had at the conference (conference goers and speakers) was the highest of any I have been at.” (Eli Portnoy, ThinkNear) And there are more, you can read them here.

Who is Street Fight Summit West for? Well, you, of course. Those who will be benefit most include large and small local publishers; location-based startups; big brands that want to craft a locally oriented strategy; daily deal and flash commerce companies; platforms aimed at helping SMBs market online; and anyone who is interested in the future of local online advertising and marketing. Anyone who cares about the rapid pace of innovation taking place in this business.

And we want to help you save. Readers of this post get $100 off the price of admission using the code BREAKINGNEWS. Go to the main conference page for more information and buy your ticket today.

We’ve submitted an application to the Knight Foundation for funding of the Breaking News Network as the community service media network. It’s a market position we’ve been developing for the past three years.

The Knight News Challenge is funding innovative Media Networks this spring, so the topic is perfect for our Network. Knight just posted Thursday that the five applications with the most “likes” will automatically be included as semi-finalists (I suppose to test the robustness of the applying networks).

We humbly ask you the favor of “liking” our application: http://newschallenge.tumblr.com/post/19298210610/1000-city-community-service-media-network.

Please do this now because they are counting only up through Saturday (sorry, didn’t realize they would do this “like” game!)

Knight has updated to continue conversations and input through March 27. To “like” our proposal, simply do the following:

If you have applied to the program and are accepted, you should have received the following email:

Hi______,

We look forward to helping you get your message across through the Breaking News Network.

We have “authorized” you so that whenever you send out a tweet through your own Twitter account, and add the hashtag of the city name, it will “retweet” through our Breaking News Twitter feed below. You are authorized for:

@breakingsfnews / #sf

We only ask you to do the following:

1. No more than one tweet per day, so choose the ones you want to have reposted carefully
2. Please don’t spam, tweet the same thing over and over, or constantly link to your website.
3. Be informative; remember tweeting good neighborhood information like events or local news will reflect well on you (because we’re retweeting you). If you’re not “marketing” yourself, then we’ll allow 2 tweets per day.
4. We’ll “de-authorize” you if you don’t follow these simple rules.

What you can do to help support your community:

1. Read our mission statement, it’s pure community service, and we’ll never ask for a cent to promote you.
2. If you like what we’re doing, please let your community know about our service! We’d love to support them too.
3. Please follow our Facebook account too by clicking on our website link and finding our FB page, we are opening that channel up shortly.

What else we offer:

The biggest occupational trend in the restructuring of the economy has been the newly minted entrepreneur. The media regales us with stories about the new startup incubators like Y Combinator, and the success stories of their progeny. All roads to developing a new business point to leveraging the Internet with some sort of social, commercial or mobile business model.

All new entrepreneurs face five hurdles in developing a new online business:

1. Business model. The first step is the hardest. You need to fix a problem, and it’s best to leverage your previous work experience to identify the problem and craft a solution.
2. Programming – what does the app look like and do? The second step is just as daunting as the first.
3. Creating the simple business plan and timeline. The faster to execution, the better.
4. Funding. How to bootstrap this? You won’t likely have a network set up to reach VCs and other institutional investors, but crowdfunding may be viable.
5. Go to market strategy. Execution of course is the most critical step to success.

1. Business model: Identifying the problem.

1. First timers should start local. It’s easier to build traction when focused on a small arena.
2. Building a service is easier than a product (but remember, VCs and investors generally shy away from service businesses because they are hard to scale). The most alluring aspect of building an online product like Instagram or Pinterest, is the potential to explode. Unless you have access to programming or funding, don’t try building a product. One exception is to clone a product idea for the local market using third party services that provide “plug and play” white label templates, like Chompon for building Daily Deals businesses.
3. Use your local network and past experience. For example, there is now a huge window of opportunity to help local businesses develop social marketing expertise on a turnkey basis. If you have established a local network, you can build this service business like Apsides Media Group and Socially Now by partnering with turnkey social media solutions providers. (Note: we help to build these kinds of businesses).

2. Programming

1. Chances are the new entrepreneur has no experience on the Internet beyond buying stuff at Amazon. Hiring a programmer is a major challenge because you don’t know how to create a spec, and it’s impossible to tell if the programmer is good and the price is right. The best way to build the web service is to teach yourself WordPress or use Tumblr to create a simple model of what you want. That’s your homework. I believe building the web service prototype yourself is important to understand how it will enable the business model.
2. The prototype can look clunky. It needs to reflect the business model, and you need to confirm with your peers and potential users/customers whether there is demand for your service. Iterate until it makes sense. Pivot if you’re going down the wrong track.

3. Create a simple business plan

1. The days of a 100-page business plan are over, unless you are the type who likes to do this. Business plans can be conceptually templated by taking hot or successful business models and applying them to new industries, geographies or service sectors. “Shared economy” or “collaborative consumption” business models are 2012′s buzz and can be implemented at a local level because most sharing requires physical proximity. Here’s a list of startups in this space. For example, if you know the hardware business, you could set up a city tool sharing model similar to Toolspinner.com.
2. One more great resource for new business models: The Unhyped New Areas in Internet and Mobile

5. Go to market strategy

1. Before launch, the web service will likely need some professional app development to make the user interface credible. It’s quite possible to continue to use WordPress, especially if you’re flexible to pivoting and plan to change messaging occasionally. By this stage, you should have developed a business plan that can potentially attract a team, including partners or co-founders who can help with technical development.
2. Your goal should be to prove that the business model is viable for a community. The execution stage is obviously critical, and in the next articles, we’ll look at various go to market strategies.

We’re pleased to help you deliver your messages to your community by retweeting your tweets simply by you adding the hashtag #cityname (in this case #albany)

First, read why it’s our community service mission is to get your tweets broadcast out to our communities.

Now, apply to get your word out:

1) We never push ad sales to our local business communities. We want local businesses to use social media to converse with the community and create a local presence. And doing this is far more effective marketing than a banner ad!

2) We support local civic groups, good causes and arts organizations. In this economy, we want to help you get your word out free. We can help your social marketing by giving you free access to our Twitter feed, and Facebook pages. We also offer you the ability to post blog articles like this one. This is our community service to you. Just ask us at thebreakingnewsnetwork@gmail.com , or via @thebnn. Reference: Why we want to retweet your tweets and get your word out.

3) Are you a local business using Twitter or Facebook? Like local civic groups and good causes, we’ll help you get your word out too via access to our Twitter feeds.

4) Are you a social / local / mobile startup that faces the challenges of ramping up across hundreds of cities? We know you’re short on resources, and we’ll step up for you too. Reference: Hyperlocal Media and Collaborative Consumption Services

We’re applying. Here is one of the key questions you’ll need to answer in their application, and our answer to it.

PLEASE TELL US ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE BUILDING OR INTERESTED IN. THE MORE DETAIL THE BETTER ABLE WE ARE TO MATCH YOU WITH POTENTIAL PARTNERS.

Our strategy group Brand into Media helps brands and good causes connect to consumers at a hyperlocal level. Over the past three years, I’ve worked on a project called The Breaking News Network, a national hyperlocal media network across 250 cities. In each city, we aggregate the best local media feeds and ticker tape local news across the social media. Our business model is not based on pushing ads at local merchants, a practice we believe alienates the business community, but providing a venue for the community to engage in social media. Each city is managed on the ground by social hubs in the community who benefits from the good will inherent in providing this service.

The Network partners with companies and brands to bring their services and products to the local markets. For example, we’re distributing this article you’re reading about Founderdating across 60 cities through our Social Marketing Channel, devoted to content that help local business understand social media. We use our Breaking News Twitter and Facebook feeds for distribution.

Interested in social marketing and entrepreneurship? See our latest article about @founderdating & apply for a date! breakingsfnews.com/founderdating-…

— Breaking SF News (@breakingsfnews) February 8, 2012

We’d like to participate in Founderdating’s San Francisco meetup on March 1 to find:

1) co-founders who want to build brand management businesses using the hyperlocal principles we’ve learned from and can leverage with The Breaking News Network. (Hint: our secret sauce is we can create new hyperlocal networks).

2) technology partners building local, social, mobile products who need channels to reach the hyperlocal sphere.

3) brand partners, particularly good causes, arts organizations and foundations, both national and local, to develop social media strategies to elevate their local presence using their existing chapter infrastructure.

Once you’ve applied to FounderDating’s meetup, think about applying to be a part of the Founders Network, a peer group of entrepreneurs.

Among our first assignments with real estate brokerages was to explain to thousands of agents the new realities of social marketing; how to build real estate blogs and use social media to foster community engagement. By early 2009, the housing crisis was in full swing. Traditional real estate marketing did not work as buyers disappeared with the economic crash. Realtors (for those not in real estate, the word Realtors is trademarked by the National Association of Realtors, and is generally capitalized), in desperation, jumped en masse into social media, but could only parrot their old sales training by trumpeting “it’s a good time to buy” to an unreceptive, even hostile audience. We thought the best marketing strategy while the economy was crashing around all of us was to stop this “good time to buy” messaging and build trust with the community by positioning the Realtor as the community hub. We developed Breaking News in the spring of 2009 to test this idea.

Breaking News is simply social media sourced news that is curated and automated to ticker tape 24-by-7 the most interesting local media in a city. Local news organically builds follower bases on social media channels like Twitter and Facebook. Conversations happen; yes, locals like to engage with news.

We developed Breaking News to support the real estate community. The marketing model behind Breaking News follows the premise that successful Realtors have always had a stake in their community, as mayors, newspaper publishers or Chamber board members. Breaking News updates the concept by positioning the Realtor as social news hub, which puts them right in the center of where news reporting is headed. A few months after launch, Breaking News won the Most Innovative Media award at Inman Connect, a prominent real estate technology conference.

Here are five key features that made Breaking News an effective marketing platform for real estate professionals and other local business.

1) Realtors “own” their city or neighborhood, and are interviewed to make sure they understand how to leverage a media property for building community engagement. In many cities hundreds of Realtors compete for business within a few square miles, and geographical exclusivity has always been coveted as a critical competitive marketing advantage. Ownership also puts skin in the game, and Realtors developed Breaking News as an asset they could use over the life of their careers and beyond.

2) Breaking News automates local news curation and aggregation using RSS feeds of the best media, blog and social media resources in a city. The 24-by-7 ticker tape of news allows Realtors to do what they do best – network and engage with their community.

3) Breaking News is customizable to the owner and the locality. The system is built on WordPress so owners can customize the design and messaging. New news feeds can be added easily. A comprehensive updated tutorial, along with twice weekly webinars on social media marketing and community engagement, provides guidance for Realtors in developing Breaking News as a local media asset.

4) Breaking News is community service media. We’re disrupting traditional local publishing business models by showing local business how to use social media to market themselves instead of purchasing advertising. We offer access to Breaking News social media feeds to anybody who wants to have a broadcast voice into the cities and communities we cover. By providing this kind of tangible marketing and financial value to the community, owners develop beneficial community relationships that they are leveraged for their own business. We dub this “good will marketing”.

5) Owning a local media asset can propel owners into new business opportunities because it puts them in front of the local business community. Socially Now and Apsides Media Group  are two examples of offshoot businesses that were developed from Breaking News by owners involved in real estate. Many Breaking News systems offer local deals. We actively show owners how to develop these businesses as a commercial service to their community.

In sum, Breaking News revolutionizes local media by providing a simple to build construct that can make anybody a local publisher and ringleader. The Network affirms the idea that future of local media will evolve grass roots, from individuals and community groups.