Street Fight Daily: Yelp Launches Display Ads, TribLocal Reporters Sue
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.
Yelp to Start Offering Mobile Display Ads in Bid for Revenue (AdAge)
Local business discovery and recommendation service Yelp will start hosting display ads in its mobile app. InterContinental Hotels Group and Taco Bell will be the inaugural advertisers in the new ad format, with IHG’s ads likely starting to appear on Monday and Taco Bell’s on Thursday.
On Path to IPO, Yodle Buys Lighthouse 360 to ‘Close the Loop’ (Street Fight)
Yodle, a marketing platform for small businesses, has announced the acquisition of LightHouse 360, a customer relationship management (CRM) tool for dentists, in a move to tie its customer acquisition efforts into the broader operational infrastructure of small businesses. Yodle’s chief executive, Court Cunningham, also told Street Fight in an interview that his company is “strongly considering” an IPO.
TribLocal reporters win $660K in class-action against Tribune Co. (Chicago Tribune)
The Chicago Tribune has agreed to pay a total of $660,000 to 46 current and former TribLocal reporters to settle a class-action lawsuit over unpaid overtime wages. Assigned to cover stories in the Barrington area and Palatine, reporters regularly worked more than 40 hours per week, but received only five hours of overtime pay in 2011, according to the suit.
Limits on Behavioral Ads Could Bring Higher CPMs for Publishers (Street Fight)
Matt Sokoloff: On an Internet without online behavioral advertising, publishers with a premium audience will be in higher demand, and this will result over time in increased CPMs and increased revenue. It will be a step back in time to where premium publishers and ad networks (not exchanges) were handling most of the media buys.
Don’t Weep for Groupon Ex-CEO Andrew Mason (Wall Street Journal)
One thing is crystal clear already: Mason has a tidy nest egg — roughly $260 million — to spend on whatever tropical island he may hit to nurse his wounds, or to splurge on the fat camp he referenced in a letter to employees. Mason owns a 7.1% stake of Groupon’s combined Class A and Class B shares, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and his stock is worth $228 million at today’s prices.
Case Study: Duane Reade Uses Local Brand Advocates to Promote Neighborhood Stores (Street Fight)
Rather than relying solely on traditional advertising to promote the company’s recent rebranding efforts, the drugstore chain’s online/public relations manager Calvin Peters has expanded the company’s social media efforts and created what he calls a “VIP blogger team.” Peters has partnered with bloggers with online communities centered around the New York metro area to generate buzz and organic media in the form of user-generated content.
ShopSavvy Partners With Capital One, Turns Its Mobile Wallet Into A Platform For Deals (TechCrunch)
ShopSavvy, the mobile application best known for its barcode-scanning and price comparison features, is today moving into personalized deals, through a new relationship with Capital One. The app will now show Capital One deals to any of the app’s users, provided they first add their Capital One credit card to ShopSavvy’s mobile wallet.
Legal Battles Erupt Over Hyperlocal Data Mining (Street Fight)
Brian Dengler: The issue of data mining is contentious and risky. On the one hand, pure facts, such as the address and telephone number of a business posted in a public area on the Internet, are not entitled to legal protection. On the other hand, the way such facts are expressed and organized may deserve copyright protection.
Leveling the (Local) Playing Field: How Tech Can Help Merchants Compete (Venture Beat)
Rene Reinsberg: It’s easy for local merchants to be overwhelmed by the seeming laundry list of technologies they should adopt to make their lives easier. In fact, there’s a wide open market for integrating the many tools and signals a merchant has access to, so that they can start to get insights from multiple channels.
Why Nokia Is Calling “Here” Here, The Curious Rebranding Of Their Maps Product (TechCrunch)
As Nokia tries to separate out its mapping business and make it a standalone entity earning more than 1 billion euros per year, it has stripped its name entirely out of the unit. This past week, the company said it would take its name out of all navigation products and instead brand them with the word “HERE” — as in HERE Maps, HERE Drive and HERE Transit.
Get Street Fight Daily in your inbox! Subscribe to our newsletter.