Street Fight Daily: GoDaddy Acquires Locu, Zillow Snaps Up StreetEasy
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology
GoDaddy Acquires Merchant ‘Finder’ Startup Locu for $70 Million (AllThingsD)
GoDaddy, the domain seller and small business online platform, said it had acquired San Francisco startup Locu. While the company did not disclose the terms of the deal, sources close to the situation said it paid $70 million in cash and stock for the company.
Leaked Revenue Figures Illustrate Need For Hundreds Of Patch Layoffs (TechCrunch)
Patch’s revenue for 2013 will fall far short of what AOL had hoped the service would earn in 2012. This explains, and places into context, the hundreds of layoffs that Patch is currently enacting: It wasn’t making enough money to stay alive otherwise.
Internet Impacts Roughly $1.83 Trillion in Offline Buying (ScreenWerk)
Greg Sterling: If half of consumers research half of their purchases online then roughly 25% of purchases overall would be influenced by the internet in some way. If we use that “conservative” figure and spread it across retail and services spending, we arrive at the following statement: Roughly $1.83 trillion in offline purchases in the Us are impacted by the internet on annual basis.
Zillow Buys StreetEasy for $50 Million (Inc.)
Zillow, the nation’s largest real estate listings website, paid $50 million in cash Monday to acquire StreetEasy, another listings site based in New York City. The deal should help Zillow stay competitive in the market, which StreetEasy had in the bag with 1.2 million monthly unique users and listings with some of the city’s premiere brokerage firms.
TaskRabbit Begins Servicing 5 New Cities (TheNextWeb)
Starting yesterday, customers in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC will be able to summon a TaskRabbit to help them complete a task, run an errand, or help them out with a project. It also revealed that it’s on track to sign up 1.25 million new users this year alone, powered by its growing army of 15,000 so-called Rabbits — 2,000 of which have been trained and will operate in the five new cities.
SMBs Embrace Customer Loyalty Programs (NetNewsCheck)
Small businesses continue to be enamored with customer loyalty programs — with 38% currently offering such a program and another 21% planning to offer a loyalty program in the next year — according to new data from BIA/Kelsey. The findings are broken out from the company’s “Local Commerce Monitor,” its ongoing study of the advertising behaviors of SMBs.
Can Restorando Beat OpenTable In Latin America? (WSJ)
When asked if Restorando is a boldfaced copy of OpenTable, Flybridge Capital’s Jon Karlen said it may be perceived that way, but then again who cares? He believes apps and services in the fragmented restaurant reservations business have to “win city by city.” OpenTable could try to get into Latin America a year or three years from now, he said, but Restorando will already be there.