Street Fight Daily: Twitter’s SMB Self-Serve, DudaMobile Funding

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.

Twitter Launches Self-Service Ads for Small Businesses (Twitter Advertising Blog)
Last month, Twitter partnered with American Express to offer its small business Cardmembers and merchants the chance to use Twitter advertising to better engage with the people they want to reach. Now American Express will begin to notify eligible Cardmembers and merchants that they can now start advertising on Twitter. Initially, only a small group of businesses will have access to the service, but Twitter will steadily increase the number of participating small businesses over the coming weeks.

Check-In Needs To Work, But How Can We Fix It? (TechCrunch)
John Biggs: Check-in becomes valuable when we don’t notice it. But invisible check-in requires deep hooks into the mobile device’s operating system. This, in turn, sets privacy advocates on edge because, in a sense, the app is telling people where you are without your explicit knowledge (although not without your explicit permission.) You give up a freedom to gain a bit of functionality.

Daily Deals: Do Consumers Still Care? (Ad Age)
Kunur Patel: Even though daily deals started with local merchants, the category is no longer just for small businesses. There’s also a mix of national and international advertisers using the service to target locally. For example, KFC ran a deal with Groupon Hong Kong for 50% off chicken and egg tarts leading up to Christmas.

Going After SMBs, Mobile Website Maker DudaMobile Raises $6M Series B (TechCrunch)
DudaMobile, a company which helps convert existing websites into mobile-optimized versions, has just raised $6 million in Series B funding. The startup, which began life as a white label offering before making its self-serve platform available to businesses last year, says it plans to use the additional funding to expand its engineering and marketing teams, with a special focus on targeting its products towards the SMB market.

Loyalty Shifts Paradigm from Advertising to Commerce (BIA/Kelsey)
Long before daily deals surged, and now after they’ve peaked and pivoted, loyalty and rewards programs stand as beachheads in the evolving online promotions/commerce ecosystem. At ILM East 2012, three leaders in loyalty discussed how advertising and commerce are quickly colliding, and how “big data” is shaping the new merchant/consumer relationship.

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