Street Fight Daily: Google Revamps Zagat, Groupon Loses Mobile Chief
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology
Google Unveils Revamped Zagat Website, Apps (TheNextWeb)
Following its decision to shutter Google+ Local on August 7, Google has launched a new Zagat site and native apps for iOS and Android today to help users find the best restaurants, bars, cafes and clubs around the world. It’s a little basic in comparison to Foursquare, but there’s a couple of filtering options and the chance to tap through to a review and Zagat’s custom scoring system.
Behind Big Retail Brands’ Complicated Relationship With Loyalty (Street Fight)
More and more, loyalty startups are looking beyond the SMB market to larger brands as a potentially lucrative market with substantially lower sales costs. But, the outcome could be more complicated than it first appears. In a recent conversation with Street Fight, Dawn Maire, creative director at Rockfish Interactive, suggested that retailers might be better acquirers than partners for many loyalty companies.
Groupon Loses Mobile Head David Katz (TechCrunch)
Groupon continues to roll out new products that point to the e-commerce company’s ongoing ambitions to move beyond the daily deal and further into becoming a central hub for local and mobile commerce. But come August, it will be doing so without one of its most senior mobile execs. David Katz, VP and GM of consumer mobile, is leaving the company at the end of next month.
How the GeoWeb Will Change Consumer and Business Behavior (Street Fight)
Jason Klein: Digital location-based technologies are now a transformative force for consumers and businesses, particularly when coupled with the rapid adoption of mobile and the growth of big data. I’m a big believer in the future for “GeoDisruption” — the potential for consumers and businesses to interact in fundamentally new ways to take advantage of increasingly precise location-based technologies.
New Facebook for Business Hub Launches With Tips, Tools, Case Studies (SearchEngineWatch)
Facebook is looking to make it even easier for businesses to market themselves effectively on the social media platform by launching a new Facebook for Business hub. The new hub not only features tools for businesses, it also gives useful information such as case studies as well as announcements and marketing tools.
8 Tools For the In-Store Delivery of Mobile Coupons (Street Fight)
Sixty-three percent of shoppers say they would be more likely to make a purchase if they received a coupon during their shopping experience. Still, only 27% of companies have plans to implement location-based marketing in 2013. Here are eight straightforward tools that retailers can use to satisfy consumer demand and drum up additional sales with the delivery of mobile coupons.
How This Yelp Exec Makes The World More ‘Yelpy’ (Fast Company)
From Berlin to Stockholm, Singapore to the Czech Republic, Yelp’s VP of new markets, Miriam Warren, is charged with turning Yelp into a local institution. How does she begin? By hanging out and chatting.
Where Will Google’s Local Carousel Go to Next? (ClickZ)
Gregg Stewart: Looking at Google’s history, any new product or feature is just a precursor to more changes. It’s very rare to see Google unveil something and stick with the same functionality or layout seen at launch, so we can bet that the carousel we see today may not be the same one we are looking at in even a month’s time.
OverNear Seeks to Reinvent Location-Based Social Media (MediaPost)
OverNear keeps track of the times and places you and your friends plan on being with a calendar-like feature, then automatically highlights when your plans overlap, making it easier to coordinate and take advantage of social opportunities. At launch OverNear’s board of advisors includes Will Glaser, co-founder of Pandora, and Jerry Quinedlen, the former CEO of Logitech.
GPS Jamming: Out of Sight (Economist)
Every day for up to ten minutes near the London Stock Exchange, someone blocks signals from the GPS network of satellites. Navigation systems in cars stop working and timestamps on trades made in financial institutions can be affected. The incidents are not a cyber-attack by a foreign power, though. The most likely culprit, according to Charles Curry, whose firm Chronos Technology covertly monitors such events, is a delivery driver dodging his bosses’ attempts to track him.
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