Street Fight Daily: LivingSocial Partners With Starbucks, Hibu Sinks
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.
As Starbucks Runs a Deal With LivingSocial, Groupon Stock Touches a New Low (All Things D)
Groupon’s stock dipped to an all-time low of $4.00 yesterday morning after Starbucks announced it was going to offer a discount through the daily deal giant’s closest rival, LivingSocial. LivingSocial, partly owned by Amazon, will be offering a $10 Starbucks gift card for $5 across the U.S. Wednesday, Reuters reported.
Yellow Pages Publisher Sinks as Creditors Circle (The Guardian)
Hibu, the troubled publisher of the Yellow Pages, fell a precipitous 48% to 0.64p on Monday morning, on fears that shareholders will be wiped out if a group of banks take control of the company. The Sunday Times reported over the weekend that Hibu’s creditors are on the brink of appointing U.S. restructuring firm Houlihan Lokey to advise on a debt-for-equity swap.
For Better and Worse, the Sacramento Press Lets the Readers Write the News (Columbia Journalism Review)
Articles cover the things you’d expect to see in a local paper — news, politics, events, restaurant openings — though they are often written from the perspective of a participant. There are advice columns (“Ask the County Law Librarian” and “Ask the Trainer,” for instance), and regular columns, such as Allison Joy’s “What’s With That,” in which Joy finds a relevant local’s take on larger news events.
What Restaurants Know (About You) (New York Times)
Increasingly, restaurants are recording whether you are a regular, a first-timer, someone who lives close by or a friend of the owner or manager. They archive where you like to sit, when you will celebrate a special occasion and whether you prefer your butter soft or hard, Pepsi over Coca-Cola or sparkling over still water. In many cases, they can trace your past performance as a diner; how much you ordered, tipped and whether you were a “camper” who lingered at the table long after dessert.
By 2016, 70M Families Will Keep Tabs on Each Other with GPS (GigaOm)
Family member locator apps will grow into a big business as tracking services gravitate from specialized devices to the smartphone, according to Berg Insight. Sixteen million people use a GPS or cellular tracking service today, but smartphones will drive that number to 70 million in 2016.
With An Extra $1.2M From Rally Capital, Pirq Adds Loyalty, Nat’l Rollout To Its Restaurant Deals App (TechCrunch)
Pirq has picked up an extra $1.2 million in funding from existing investor Rally Capital (a fund headed by former Nextel CEO Dennis Weibling); and it is adding a digital punchcard to its retail restaurant deals offering, as it prepares to take the service nationwide and to other categories besides food. Pirq’s service, which offers discounts on food to users of its app, is different from deals from the likes of Groupon and Living Social, in that it uses an algorithm to measure when restaurants are less busy.
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