Street Fight Daily: Retailers Get Into Mobile Payments, Holovaty Out at EveryBlock
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.
Target, Walmart and Co.: Why Leave Mobile Payments to Others? (GigaOm)
The mobile payment market is getting even more crowded thanks to a big play by a consortium of retailers including Target, Walmart, Sears and others who are creating their own mobile wallet. The move will give them a chance to save costs and protect their data.
Did Yelp and TripAdvisor Push Google to Compete? (New York Times/Bits)
Claire Cain Miller: The news that Google would be publishing travel reviews set competing online review companies, like Yelp and TripAdvisor, on edge. In essence, those companies drove Google to compete with them, said Greg Sterling: “The irony here is by saying Google was competing with them, Yelp and TripAdvisor have, in a way, pushed Google in this direction where Google is competing with them in a way it wasn’t before,” he said.
Founder Adrian Holovaty Leaving EveryBlock After 5 Years (Holovaty.com)
“There was no single event, person or experience that swayed my decision — just a gradual realization that I’ve done what I wanted to do with EveryBlock and am hungry for the next thing,” he writes. “I’ve really enjoyed building the site, collaborating with talented people and breaking ground in several areas, from open data to mapping to local news — but I’ve realized lately that I don’t have the passion for it that I once did.”
What Does It Mean if Groupon Is Indeed the Largest Mobile Commerce Company? (AllThingsD)
Tricia Duryee: With larger questions about Groupon’s growth prospects being asked, it’s hard to pay attention to any possible bright spots on the horizon. Countless companies, from eBay and Amazon to much smaller firms, are trying hard to crack both social and mobile commerce. So, if Groupon does indeed have one of the biggest leads in mobile, what does it mean?
App Users Say, Give Us Better, More Interactive Ads (Mediapost)
Most mobile app users prefer their content free and ad-supported, but can publishers and their marketing partners please at least make the ads more rewarding? That appears to be the underlying message from a new Harris Interactive survey of app users on both Facebook’s app platform and mobile users.
SpotOn: Loyalty Site Argues Against Card Links (Local Onliner)
Peter Krasilovsky: A major feature of the current crop of loyalty and rewards programs is that they link to credit card or debit card accounts. This gives them the ability to process transactions and provide deeper analytics. But a number of players are skipping this step. One reason they might avoid card linking: it is an extra step that is difficult to manage and scares away potential customers who might be reluctant to provide that information to an unknown company.
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