Street Fight Daily: Paton Opens Up, LivingSocial To Slow M&A
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.
For Paton, Bankruptcy for Journal Register Is ‘Embarrassing’ but Necessary (New York Times)
“It’s pretty damn public and it’s pretty damn embarrassing,” Mr. Paton said about the bankruptcy in an interview. “From a business perspective, it’s the absolute right thing to do.”
LivingSocial to Slow Acquisition Pace (Reuters)
LivingSocial has completed eight acquisitions in the past two years, including the purchase of South Korean online daily deal provider TicketMonster in 2011. CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy told Reuters the the company will continue to look at potential acquisitions, but deals will likely focus more on specific technology that fits with its business or great teams that the company wants to attract.
Paying the Apple Way: It’s Coming, But Not Likely on New iPhone (Wired)
When Apple finally does put an NFC chip into a phone, you can bet the company will have the experience of using that chip fully mapped out and partnerships in place to ensure a tight rollout. That experiment-in-the-wild approach fits Google’s culture, but not Apple’s, and even Apple can’t force the overhaul of the entire U.S. point-of-sale payment infrastructure overnight.
Groupon’s (small) August Bounce (Wall Street Journal)
Shares of the Internet coupon company leapt 8% Tuesday after industry data sources showed that, for the moment, Groupon may have arrested the decline in its business. Comscore data showed a bounce in unique visitors from July to August, but perhaps more interesting is that industry tracker Yipit released similar data to some clients showing that Groupon’s top line got a small bounce too.
Now That We Have YouTube, Will We Get Google Maps On The iPhone 5 Too? (SAI)
Based on our experience with the early versions of iOS 6, Apple’s new maps app is a lot worse than the current one that relies on Google Maps data. So the question is: Will Google bring its official Google Maps app to the iPhone like it did with YouTube today?
Pew: Almost 70 Percent Of Affluent Adults Own Smartphones (Marketing Land)
The Pew Internet & American Life project has released some new survey data about smartphone ownership in anticipation of tomorrow’s iPhone announcement. Based on a survey of more than 3,000 adults earlier this month, Pew says that 45 percent of Americans 18 and older now own smartphones – that the number goes up to 88% when looking only at mobile subscribers.
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