Street Fight Daily: Abraham Leaves eBay, Opentable Acquires Foodspotting

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.

jack-abraham-milo-ebayeBay Loses Head of Local Jack Abraham (Fortune)
eBay has announced that its head of local, Jack Abraham, is leaving, but the company says he will retain an advisory role on areas like shopping innovation. Abraham’s departure comes more than two years since his startup Milo was acquired by eBay for $75 million.

#SFSNYC VIDEOS: Panels and Presentations From Our Recent NYC Summit (Street Fight)
It’s been a couple of weeks since we gathered hundreds of hyperlocal industry execs in New York at the Street Fight Summit, but we’re still sifting through a lot of the ideas and inspiration that emerged from those few days. We’ve uploaded video clips of nearly all the onstage presentations and panels and are happy to share them with you.

OpenTable to Acquire Foodspotting for $10 Million (The New York Times)
OpenTable, the online reservation business, says it is acquiring a start-up to make booking a table a bit more intimate and social. The company on Tuesday said it had agreed to buy Foodspotting, the San Francisco social media start-up, for $10 million.

6 Indoor Navigation Platforms for Retailers (Street Fight)
Nearly three-quarters of consumers with smartphones say they would rather use their mobile devices inside a store than ask an associate for help. Here are six platforms that merchants of all sizes can use to help customers find products on store shelves and perhaps complete more transactions.

Why the Future of Local-Mobile Advertising Is Not What You May Think (Screenwerk)
Greg Sterling: I keep reading very aggressive projections about local-mobile advertising from BIA and others. Rather than grounded in reality today, these forecasts are built on a set of “optimistic” but simple assumptions about how the market will inevitably develop.

Yelp’s Rocky Relationship with Small Business (PBS Media Shift)
Accusations of extortion might seem like a stretch, but not if you’ve been following Yelp’s shaky history with small business. They’ve been the subject of two class action suits — though both were dismissed before they got to trial. A third is in the works.

More Consumers Order Food Online Using a Smartphone or Tablet (ClickZ)
Nearly 70 percent of consumers said they order food online using a mobile device, according to a new study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Viggle. The study found that users use their mobile device to find out restaurant locations, check out menus, and see other users’ reviews.

Marc Andreessen: The Internet Helps Small Businesses Beat Walmart (Business Insider)
Marc Andreessen, the legendary cofounder of Netscape turned tech investor, says workplace apps that run on the Internet are making small businesses just as powerful as big ones. Ultimately, these software-as-a-service startups mean that a company doesn’t need a big IT budget to compete, giving small businesses a chance to compete with Walmart.

Grubwithus Launches a Social Dining App for the Impatient: GrubTonight (GigaOm)
For its first mobile app launch, social dining startup Grubwithus is doing away with coordinated dinner themes and focusing on immediate gratification. Over the weekend it launched GrubTonight, an iPhone app that allows strangers in the same city to meet up for impromptu meals with just a few hours notice. Think of it as a tweetup with a set menu.

Urban Compass, Still In Stealth Mode, Is Now Hiring ‘Neighborhood Specialists’ To Collect Data For Its Ambitious City Database Vision (TechCrunch)
Urban Compass, the startup in stealth mode that raised an $8 million seed round from high-profile investors late in 2012, is slowly revealing more details about what it will be doing, and how it will be doing it, when it launches for business later this year — most likely in April. It’s kicking off a recruitment drive for “neighborhood specialists” — data collectors who will also serve as a collective public face of the company and provide other services to businesses in their respective areas.

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