Street Fight Daily: LivingSocial Takes $566M Loss, Mayer Buys Stamped
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.
Amazon Loss Puts Spotlight on Daily-Deal Firm LivingSocial (Reuters)
Amazon’s first quarterly net loss in more than five years on Thursday highlights the trials of LivingSocial, Groupon closest rival in the daily deal industry. LivingSocial had an operating loss of around $565 million and a net loss of about $566 million for the quarter, the company’s Chief Executive Tim O’Shaughnessy reported in an internal memo.
Mayer Strikes First Deal at Yahoo With Acquisition of Stamped (New York Times)
The Internet company announced that it had purchased Stamped, a start-up focused on mobile products, for an undisclosed amount. The deal fits into a major initiative by Mayer to build up Yahoo’s mobile offerings, an area that she described as lacking at the company.
What We’ve Learned a Year After Groupon’s IPO (Crain’s Chicago Business)
As Groupon’s shares sank as much as 79 percent from the IPO price of $20—it closed at $4.46 Thursday—expectations surrounding the daily-deal company collapsed, too. With the Nov. 4 anniversary of Groupon’s IPO approaching, it’s time to examine the lessons it holds for all those who expected things to be so much better for the Chicago company.
Your Friendly Neighbourhood App: Why the Internet is Going Local (The Economist)
The spread of the smartphone has made a huge difference: it is a powerful, portable computer that allows its user’s position to be tracked to within a few yards, so that he can be told all sorts of information about what is around him. Especially in America and particularly in its big cities, this has sparked a proliferation of “location-based services”—an ugly mouthful meaning, roughly, services arranged or provided online, according to where the user is.
Why Small News Should Be Big News for Local Newspapers – Mock It at Your Peril (David Higgerson)
David Higgerson: There’s a serious point I want to make here: that the difference between what a trained journalist sees as news and what the local newspaper reader sees as news has the potential to render us irrelevant to our audience. But, as I’ve blogged before, seeing a paper being picked up by more people than not as soon as it arrives tells me that it’s a paper which knows its audience.
Mobile Opens Up New Opportunities for Facebook and Google (Venture Beat)
Rocky Agrawal: As Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said on the company’s earnings call, local advertising has been the Holy Grail for online advertising. To date, there has been little that’s made a meaningful impact in local advertising online with players falling into two general buckets: plunder and pillage, or Data-driven, self-serve startups.
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