Street Fight Daily: Groupon Eyes Warehouse Network, Belly Raises $12M Round

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

grouponGroupon Eyes Warehouse Network For Goods (Wall Street Journal)
Groupon is planning a network of North American warehouses for its physical goods business, pushing the company known for coupons into more direct competition with Amazon. In an interview Tuesday, CEO Eric Lefkofsky said the Chicago company is already eyeing one space in Kentucky and is considering adding more over time.

Joe Trippi: Local TV’s Biennial Political Cash Bonanza Is Going to Fall Off a Cliff (Street Fight)
Terry Heaton: In an recent interview, the presidential campaign guru told Street Fight that while it would be business as usual for broadcasters next year, 2016 would likely see the beginning of the end of TV’s dominance in political advertising: “There’s a growing number of people who get it,” he said, “that there’s a better way to deliver a more targeted and relevant message without having to buy all that broadcast reach. It’s going to come. … It’s just a matter of time and innovation.”

Big Retail’s Interest in Loyalty Startup Belly Grows: 7-Eleven Chips In On $12M Round (GigaOm)
7-Eleven isn’t exactly known for investing in tech startups, but the convenience store chain is making an exception for Belly, a Chicago startup with an increasingly digital loyalty and rewards platform. 7-Eleven’s new venture capital arm 7-Ventures joined Andreessen Horowitz, Lightbank, New Enterprise Associates, DAG Ventures and Cisco Systems in a $12.1 million funding round, Belly announced Wednesday.

5 Hyperlocal Platforms to Improve Store Operations (Street Fight)
Using indoor positioning and navigation tools, retailers can pinpoint traffic backups, improve store layouts, and deploy additional cashiers when checkout lines have reached certain maximum thresholds. They can also boost sales with merchandising displays that have been specifically designed to combat the dreaded “showrooming” effect. Here are five tools that retailers can use to upgrade the shopping experience inside their brick-and-mortar stores.

Forget Tablets. Nokia Has A Bigger Connected Gadget In Mind: The Car (GigaOm)
Rumors of a Nokia tablet has got the tech world buzzing, but Nokia’s plans to expand beyond the handset are much more ambitious than producing a mere slate. Nokia EVP of Location and Commerce Michael Halbherr told GigaOM that the Finnish handset maker is eyeballing the car as the next repository of its technology and applications and has plans to launch some form of connected car platform in the future.

The New iPhone Could Reboot Outdoor Advertising (Mashable)
Electronic billboards can display video and occasionally run tweets or Facebook comments from fans, but they don’t react dynamically in the same way as online and mobile advertising. An NFC-enabled iPhone could change that, though. With an install base by the end of the year in the millions, outdoor advertisers will have the license to try out some more interactive advertising.

Research: Only 3% Of Marketers Find ‘Good ROI’ In Mobile (MediaPost)
Marketing technology company [x+1] is gearing up to release a research report comparing how marketers and consumers perceive the value of certain ad types, and the company’s VP of marketing John Haake gave RTM Daily an early look at the key findings. Chief among them: only 3% of marketers are finding “good ROI” in mobile.

Ubimo, A Location-Based Mobile Audience Targeting Startup Founded By Ex-Googlers, Raises $2M Seed Round (TechCrunch)
Ubimo, a startup that focuses on location-based mobile audience targeting, has raised a $2 million seed round led by Pitango Venture Capital with the participation of serial entrepreneur and angel investor Eyal Gura. Instead of relying on geofencing, which sends content to mobile devices based on their current geographic area and is used by many location-based services, Ubimo’s patent-pending Translocal targeting technology focuses on helping advertisers figure out the right audience, context and timing for different campaigns.

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