Street Fight Daily: Yelp Buys Qype, SMBs Warm to Facebook
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.
Yelp Buys Website Qype for $50 Million to Grow in Europe (Bloomberg Businessweek)
Yelp bought European peer Qype GmbH to boost its user base and sales workforce abroad. Yelp paid about $50 million for Qype, including 18.6 million euros ($24.1 million) in cash and 970,000 shares of its Class A common stock, the San Francisco-based company said in a statement today.
Local Businesses Start Warming Up To Facebook Ads: 300K Tried Promoted Posts, 75K Were New Advertisers (TechCrunch)
12.8 million small business have a free-to-use Facebook Page, and 8 million use it monthly, Sheryl Sandberg explained on the company’s earnings call Tuesday. By making advertising easier, Facebook got 300,000 of them to buy its new Promoted Posts ads, 25% of which, had never bought Facebook ads before.
Brick-and-Mortar Retailers Preparing for an Online Christmas (AllThingsD)
“In the next 12 to 24 months, I think to survive and to compete against Amazon, local retailers will have to leverage the store in a way that they thought they never could,” said Chris Saridakis, the president of GSI Commerce. Saridakis said one of the big trends this holiday season is to use technology to tie together both the virtual and physical shopping experiences — something that is increasingly being referred to as “bricks and clicks.”
Editor Elder Quits DNAInfo Chicago on Eve of Launch (Time Out Chicago)
With the launch of DNAInfo.com Chicago just around the corner, Robert K. Elder suddenly resigned this week as managing editor of the hyperlocal digital news service. Elder, who recruited most of the 20 or so reporters and editors to the startup operation, said he’s leaving to work on a number of television projects.
Ex-MapQuest Executive’s Startup Launches App to Help Small Businesses Keep Up With Competitors (Washington Post)
The Denver-based startup Closely officially launched its Perch Wednesday, a new smartphone app lets small-business owners quickly scan competitors’ Yelp reviews, Internet deals, and Facebook and Twitter updates, without necessarily having to “like” or “follow” their competitors online. Perch operates much like TweetDeck, which helps people read and organize postings on Twitter and Facebook.
Amex’s Joanna Lambert: Build Around Consumers ‘In the Wild’ (Local Onliner)
“From a merchants perspective, (mobile wallets) should add incremental value,” says Joana Lambert, SVP of Strategy and Business Innovation at American Express. “The number one thing is to make them more personalized, more targeted and more relevant.”
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