Street Fight Daily: LivingSocial Posts Another Loss, ByteLight Raises $3 Million
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology
LivingSocial Logs $25 million Net Loss In Third Quarter (Washington Post)
Profitability continues to elude District-based LivingSocial, which reported a loss of $25 million during the third quarter, a person familiar with the company’s finances said Thursday. The daily deals site has narrowed its losses each quarter this year, bringing its total loss for the first nine months to $106 million. Its revenue in that period tallied $384 million, including $120 million in the third quarter.
Schumer Urges Retailers, Location Tech Companies To Address Privacy Issues (Street Fight)
During a speech at the Street Fight Summit in New York Friday, Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) spoke about his role in developing a privacy code of conduct for the location analytics industry, and the need for consumer advocates, technology companies and retailers to come together and pro-actively address the issue.
Boston’s ByteLight Raises Series A As It Promises To Let Retailers Find You Anywhere (PandoDaily)
How do you track someone’s indoor location down to the meter? Boston-based startup ByteLight thinks the answer is to stick a microchip in LED lightbulbs and then use its software and your smartphone’s camera to detect invisible-to-the-naked-eye lighting pulses from those bulbs, thereby revealing your exact whereabouts. And, as of today, it now has a further $3 million in funding to help further its mission of turning you into a mappable shopping dot.
Focus Turns to Attribution in Mobile Local Ad Tech (Street Fight)
Michael Boland: The promise of mobile local advertising continues to invoke the “closed loop” idea. But it seems like the tech and media worlds are finally acknowledging that 93% U.S. retail spending happens offline. And an increasing share of that — to the tune of about $1.5 trillion — is influenced online and in mobile. So connecting those dots is the name of the game.
How Mobile Technology is Changing the Way We Dine Out (Wall Street Journal)
The past decade has seen many tech innovations when it comes to dining out, but no truly life-altering advancements—until now. Mobile technology is revolutionizing the way diners interact with restaurants, for better and worse. While new apps are expanding, accelerating and streamlining the dining experience, the ubiquity of smartphones can eclipse some of the very reasons we eat out: relaxation, discovery, camaraderie and a fleeting escape from our machine-driven lives.
Mobile Payment Startup Flint Raises $6 Million in Series B Round (Street Fight)
Flint, a Redwood-based company, wants to tap into that market by bringing payment processing, and basic marketing capabilities, to mobile – but without the use of a dongle. The Redwood-based company announced a $6 million series B round of funding at Street Fight Summit this morning to expand its solution, led by Digicel Group with additional funding from SVG Venture.
VCs Talk Location-Based Services And Why It’s Hard To Invest In Hyperlocal Startups (AdExchanger)
Location-based startups that allow advertisers to personalize their offers and provide other customized services are quickly becoming a highly lucrative space. Panelists discussed their views on the growth of location-based services with moderator Jason Klein, CEO of On Grid Ventures, yesterday at the Street Fight Summit.
Why Partnerships Are Key to the Future of Local (Street Fight)
The future of local lies in partnerships. That was the topic of a wide-ranging discussion between Ohad Tzur, North America Lead for Google’s Wildfire partnership program, Delivery.com CEO Jed Kleckner, and Leaf CEO Aron Schwarzkopf, during a panel at Street Fight Summit on Friday morning.
How Local Businesses Should Size Up & Tackle Social Media (SearchEngineLand)
Chris Marentis: Research shows social channels are becoming more important signals in major search engine algorithms that affect the entire SEO and local search landscape. However, effective local and social media marketing is a time-consuming and daunting, yet important, effort for local businesses.
OLO On Mobile Restaurant Ordering: ‘We Want To Be The Amazon Of Food’ (Forbes)
OLO is taking customization approach with the online/mobile ordering technology it provides for the 150-plus fast and casual restaurant chains it works with so far. With the trademarked catchphrase “Skip the Line” the company’s ecommerce platform allows customers to order and pay for takeout food in advance from their phones. When the customer arrives, they walk directly up to the counter or park in the specialized spots to pick up the order that’s been prepared in advance, just in time.
How Early Stage Hyperlocals Can Determine Their Ideal Customers (Street Fight)
Defining the ideal customer should be one of the first steps a startup takes during its earliest days, since the needs of that ideal customer will play a major role in the features and tools included in a particular hyperlocal platform. Here are five ways that early-stage hyperlocal startups can go about defining their ideal customers.
Adagogo Launches To Make Mobile Advertising Stupid Simple — For The Little Guy (VentureBeat)
You’re having a garage sale. Perhaps a neighborhood social. Or, you’re trying to drum up business for your local landscaping company. Why not buy a mobile ad? That’s basically the vision behind new startup Adagogo, launched by the original Google user experience designer and the man behind the second version of AdWords. The company makes buying a mobile ad basically as simple as posting to Faceboo
Location-Sharing Innovator Glympse Thrives via Narrow Focus (Screenwerk)
Mobile location-sharing provider Glympse announced that it was being integrated into the “Verizon Messages” application. There have been a few features added at the margins but basically this is the same app/tool that launched five years ago. The temptation would have been to pivot or build Glympse into something broader that offered local search or deals or check-ins.
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