Street Fight Daily: Google Retires Latitude, Life360 Raises $10M
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology
Google Is Retiring Its Latitude Location-Sharing Service (TheNextWeb)
Latitude, the social location-sharing service that launched in February 2009, is to be retired on August 9th 2013. Its features will be split between the Google+ mobile app and the Android OS – but it appears that iOS users will no longer be able to maintain a location history with Google.
Yelp Presses Into Commerce With New Local Delivery Product (Street Fight)
Yelp launched a new product Tuesday that will allow customers to order food from participating merchants directly through its site or its mobile app. The move marks a seminal point in the company’s history, as the local discovery firm transitions from an information provider to an integrated local commerce service.
Family App Life360 Raises $10 million Series B Round For Growth, International Expansion (GigaOm)
Life360, the family-oriented smartphone app that lets people commicate through location, chat, and check-ins, is announcing Wednesday that it’s raised a $10 million Series B round, which will aid the company’s growth, particularly in international markets. The app now has 40 million registered users, and the company recently noticed that it was signing up large numbers of users in other countries, even if the product was meant for the U.S.
Bolstered By Bulls In North America, Global Mobile Ad Spend Jumps 82% (Street Fight)
A new report from the IAB finds that global mobile advertising revenue jumped 82% in 2012, growing from $4.84 billion in 2011 to nearly $9 billion last year as smartphone adoption ramps and blue-chip marketers shift budget to mobile media. The bullish numbers, which are inline with other estimates, were bolstered by exceptional growth in the North American market.
Belo Is Now Worth More Than Gannett Is Paying (Bloomberg)
Here are two things you don’t see often in corporate mergers and acquisitions. Shares of Belo Corp., the Dallas-based owner of television stations, are trading for more than the takeover offer the company agreed to last month. And shares of the buyer, Gannett Co., have increased even more in value.
New Google Maps for Android moves in on Yelp, Foursquare (CNet)
The new Google Maps for Android includes features big and small that combine geolocation with more real-world information than just longitude and latitude. Restaurant reviews from Zagat target Yelp, and are available directly from within Maps when you look up a restaurant. You now can add your own score and comments from within Maps.
Retailers Knock Down Walls Between In-Store and Digital (Digiday)
“A good digital in-store experience has many of the same attributes of any good retail experience – it is personalized, helps you quickly navigate, and saves you money,” said Brian Monahan, vp of marketing at Walmart. As Monahan sees it, in a competitive retail environment, digital gives retailers another opportunity to grab consumers’ attention.
Local Newspapers Turn To The Public To Harvest Free Content (Financial Times)
When Trinity Mirror last month launched four newspapers in Merseyside, it was with an unusual twist: almost all the content in the free, weekly titles will be supplied by the public, rather than journalists.The move is part of the UK’s struggling local and regional newspapers’ fight back against digital media groups such as Facebook.
Foursquare’s Latest Update Targets One of the World’s Most Widely Used Phones (AllThingsD)
Foursquare announced what seemed like a minor app update: The Foursquare app is now available for Nokia’s full series of S40 mobile phones. Small potatoes? Not exactly. While the S40 may not be as fancy as an iPhone, it’s one of the world’s most popular mobile devices, having sold more than 1.5 billion units as of last year.
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