Street Fight Daily: PayPal Teams With Revel, Drones Deliver Same-Day
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology
PayPal Expands “Real World” Presence Via Integration With iPad Point-of-Sale Maker Revel Systems (TechCrunch)
PayPal has scored another deal to bring its technology to more point-of-sale platforms via an integration with iPad POS solution provider, Revel Systems. PayPal is currently focused on building up its point-of-sale presence involving its own proprietary hardware and software with its newly launched Beacon device, but the company is not attempting to take on quickly growing Square and other competitors with in-house technology alone.
The Government Shutdown and the Local Data Economy (Street Fight)
Damian Rollison: Not only is local search a self-sustaining and profitable industry; it exhibits a drive to innovate that brings ever-improving services to our desktops and handheld devices at a dizzying pace. Imagine if local directories and apps were run by the same bureaucracy that manages the Postal Service, the IRS, and the Census Bureau. Yet at a fundamental level, governmental authorities still act as objective reference points when it comes to information of interest to the public.
Zookal Starts “World First” Delivery-By-Drone Service In Sydney (PandoDaily)
Zookal, a textbook rental startup, is announcing that by using unmanned aerial vehicles to ferry textbooks to renters, it will cut delivery times from two to three days down to a matter of minutes, while shaving shipping costs down to a tenth of their normal prices. The company owns two delivery drones and has put in an order for four more, all of which are big enough to carry the weight of a textbook and delivery it to a specific GPS point at an outdoor location.
5 Mobile Payment Platforms With Integrated Marketing Solutions (Street Fight)
When a cashier swipes a customer’s credit card at a mobile point of sale terminal, he’s doing more than just processing a financial transaction. He’s transmitting data about who that customer is, what he’s buying, and when he’s buying it. Although this data has traditionally been closely guarded by legacy POS vendors, an increasing number of providers are opening up their doors and giving merchants a peek inside—using the data they gather through customer transactions to fuel integrated marketing programs for merchants.
Report: Google Smartwatch “Heavy Into” Google Now Functionality (GigaOm)
Google is reportedly putting the finishing touches on a Watch product, and Google Now functionality is set to be at the center of the product. The ‘serendipitous’ information, which Google Now shows you on your phone, is coming to the watch: Time to get home, Calendar alarms, emails, SMSes, etc. all could get pushed to the watch’s display.
Jack Dorsey: The Two Hit Wonder (New Yorker)
Dorsey now spends most of his time working at Square, which launched in 2010. Soon after Twitter was founded, Dorsey became its C.E.O., but in 2008 he lost that position after complaints piled up that the former coder had become a distracted manager. In 2011, he returned to Twitter, in a lesser executive position, and began dividing his time evenly between the two companies. Here’s an in-depth profile of the closely-watched founder.
Rogers Communications Partners With Retailers To Deliver Location-based Offers (Mobile Marketer)
Retailers such as Sears, Pizza Hut and Future Shop are delivering location-based offers to mobile users as part of a new program from Canadian wireless carrier Rogers Communications. The Rogers Alerts program is an example of how carriers, who already have a relationship with mobile users, can leverage location-based marketing to capitalize on the quickly growing mobile ad market
How Your Newly Uncluttered In-Box Could Doom Zulily’s IPO (BusinessWeek)
Zulily, a mom-focused daily deals site specializing in offering discounts that expire after a limited time, last week filed its papers to go public. The section in which it discusses risks to its business includes one very specific development its concerned about: the new Gmail.
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