Street Fight Daily: 02.01.12
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.
Facebook Set to IPO Today (New York Times)
Facebook plans to file the prospectus for its initial public offering on Wednesday, according to people briefed on the matter, finally kicking off one of the most anticipated stock sales of the social networking era. The Internet giant plans to list a preliminary fund-raising goal of about $5 billion, one of these people said.
Shopkick Scored $110M for Partners in 2011 (GigaOm)
Shopkick started putting all the pieces together with its location-based shopping app last year, helping retailers not only drive foot traffic and engagement, but also incorporating Visa integration to help lead consumers to the check-out register. The company said the results have really paid off for retailers and brand partners, which generated more than $110 million in revenue in 2011.
Top Three Reasons NOT To Do a Local + Online Startup — And What To Do Instead) (Crash Dev)
Chris DeVore: There are lots of big, hairy problems in local — and with full credit given to the disruptive power of smartphones — most of those problems are just as intractable now as they were back in 2004. One more time, for the record, the top three reasons NOT to do an online-to-local startup are: 1.) There’s no money in it; 2.) It doesn’t scale; 3. It’s too obvious.
Google & Bing: We’re Not Involved In ‘Local Paid Inclusion’ (SearchEngineLand)
It sounds great. A program that guarantees top listings for local searches on Google, Yahoo and Bing. An “officially approved” one in “cooperation” with those search engines. But it’s not so, say Google and Bing.
The Anatomy of Running a Great Daily Deal Promotion (Daily Deal Media)
Marc Horne: Deal providers or websites and merchants must work closely together to come up with a great promotion (that won’t put them in the red), as well as a great game plan to ensure the customer has a fantastic experience.
Challenges Still Face Check-in Services (Online Journalism Blog)
Damian Radcliffe: Facebook’s recent purchase of location-based service Gowalla (Slide 19 below,) suggests that the social network still thinks there is a future for this type of “check in” service. Touted as “the next big thing” ever since Foursquare launched at SXSW in 2009, to date Location Based Services (LBS) haven’t quite lived up to the hype. Certainly there’s plenty of data to suggest that the public don’t quite share the enthusiasm of many Silicon Valley investors. Yet.
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