Street Fight Daily: Inside Google Shopping, The Value Of A Yelp Review
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology
Meet the Exec Crafting Google’s Vision for the Future of Shopping (AllThingsD)
Like many of its peers, Google has its own take on what the future of digitally-enabled commerce should look like. I recently caught up with Sridhar Ramaswamy, the executive overseeing the project, at Google’s Mountain View, Calif., campus, where he talked about the future of Google Wallet, the chances of creating an online shopping marketplace to rival Amazon’s and eBay’s, and how a Google-branded physical payments card could make sense.
Here’s What Twitter Needs To Do To Win Over Local Businesses (Street Fight)
As Twitter hits the road to sell its stock to the public, the company’s monetization plans will take center stage. For Twitter’s stock to perform, the company will have to focus on growing its active user base, monetize its international users, grow mobile offerings and make money off initiatives like #music and Vine. But it will also have to crack one of the great white whales of consumer tech: the local market.
How Much Is Your Yelp Review Worth? (Fast Company)
A group of hard-working Yelp reviewers think they deserve minimum wage (at least!) for all the free labor they have put into judging local establishments, and have filed a class action lawsuit against the review site. Reading through their reviews, however, suggests their prose isn’t worth much.
6 On-Demand Home Service Marketplaces (Street Fight)
By going beyond basic business listings and customer reviews, and allowing consumers to actually schedule and pay for their home service providers online, hyperlocal vendors are closing the loop and converting more online prospects into paying customers. Here are six examples of hyperlocal marketplaces that consumers can use to research, reserve, and even pay for home service professionals.
How Do You Build A Thriving Local Marketplace? Slowly (VentureBeat)
Justin Caldbeck: When people — particularly investors — think of successful local marketplace businesses, they think of Yelp, OpenTable, maybe GrubHub, and Task Rabbit (to give our portfolio a little plug). What few realize, however, is that even the most successful of these businesses require time and patience to realize their full potential.
Mozilla’s Location Service Pilot Project Opensources Geolocation (TheNextWeb)
Mozilla today launched an experimental pilot project called Mozilla Location Service, which provides geolocation lookups based on publicly observable cell tower and WiFi access point information. While many commercial service exist, the company points out there isn’t a single “large” public service that provides this data, which is becoming increasingly important when building various parts of the mobile ecosystem.
Is Wall Street Spooked About Groupon? (Crain’s Chicago Business)
Another analyst is warning that Groupon Inc. might disappoint next week when it reports third-quarter results. Edward Woo, an Irvine, Calif.-based analyst at Ascendiant Capital Markets LLC, says he expects Groupon to miss the consensus revenue target by Wall Street analysts of $616 million (up 8 percent from a year ago) and earnings of 1 cent per share.
Appboy Adds Location Data To Its Service To Help Marketers, Developers, And Media Companies Stalk You (PandoDaily)
A new service called Appboy is an analytics and marketing company that is announcing the addition of location-based features to its service. The company now makes it easier for marketers to target people based on their location, helps app developers learn more about the geographic spread of their users, and allows media companies to display locally relevant stories within their apps.
Harry’s Is Opening A Barbershop, Or, A Bridge For Online And Offline Customer Behavior (TechCrunch)
Months after Warby Parker opened its flagship store in New York, co-founder Jeff Raider is taking his other venture, Harry’s, in a brick and mortar direction as well. Tomorrow, the shaving supply startup will open the doors of its “Corner Shop,” a barbershop-slash-retail location in SoHo.
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