Street Fight Daily: Facebook Tests New Ratings, Google Brings Search Offline
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology
Facebook Tests Out a New Star-Rating System That Could Hurt Yelp (Business Insider)
Facebook is testing out a system of publicly displaying star-ratings on Pages, allowing users to rate between one to five stars. By adding a public rating feature, Facebook would allow users to share more concrete opinions or learn more about a business or restaurant. It also would put Facebook more directly in competition with the likes of Yelp and Foursquare.
As Revenue Lags, Groupon Forks Over $260M to LivingSocial for Korean Deals Site (Street Fight)
In Eric Lefkofsky’s largest acquisition since stepping in as chief executive, Groupon has bought Korean Deals site Ticket Monster from LivingSocial for $260 million in cash and stock. The deal, which was announced during the company’s earnings call Thursday, comes as the company posted a wider-than-expected loss in the third quarter due to continued weakness in international markets as well as rapid slowdown in the growth of its goods business.
Google Brings Local Search To Digital Displays Across London (MarketingLand)
Google has undertaken a novel marketing experiment in London. Called “Google Outside,” and first reported by the website Campaign, Google and agency R/GA have deployed 160 digital displays at bus stops and underground stations across London. The electronic displays offer “local search” information on tourist attractions, businesses and entertainment
New Hires and Openings at BuzzTown, Linkdex, Centro, Cox Media and Time Warner (Street Fight)
Every two weeks, Search Influence’s Kelly Benish — who knows practically everyone in hyperlocal — covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. In this week’s edition, new hires and jobs at Linkdex, Gannett, VendAsta, MOGL and LocalVox.
Yelp’s New Home Illustrates The Company’s Success (Forbes)
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi cut the ribbon on Yelp’s new headquarters Wednesday, making San Francisco’s PacBell building the company’s official new home. The move is a landmark for the online review company, which has been headquartered in San Francisco since being founded in 2004.
Privacy Isn’t a Right: It’s A Commodity. Here’s How To Profit From It. (Slate)
Josh Klein: We’ve already decided that privacy is not a right—and we affirm that every day that we use Facebook and Google and all the other services for which we’ve clicked “agree.” A better option might be to simply raise our prices. We can limit how our personal information is gathered and utilized, and in doing so we can demand that it be purchased at higher rates than just access to Instagram.
The Future of the Connected Conference (Wired)
Michael Peachy: As conferences go mobile and become connected through the cloud, attendees will discover new ways to make their experience extraordinary. As Salesforce.com prepares to welcome 120,000 registered attendees to Dreamforce-now the largest vendor-led technology conference ever — we are looking at ways to connect people so the conference feels intimate, personalized and impactful.
Local SEO, Digital Churn and Setting Proper SMB Expectations (Screenwerk)
Greg Sterling: Digital product churn remains very high among virtually all of the SMB sales channels (whether traditional or digital only). There are a variety of persistent causes: competition among providers, fulfillment issues and SMB confusion. Related to the last point, some component of SMB advertiser churn is has to do with a lack of proper expectations and/or ROI confusion.
Ibotta Expands Beyond Mobile Coupons, Now Lets You Earn Cash Back From Restaurants, Fast Food & Home Improvement Stores (TechCrunch)
Denver-based mobile couponing application Ibotta, which pays you cash back for items you buy in grocery stores by simply scanning your receipt, has today debuted its iOS 7-optimized version 2.0 that now brings its shopping discounts to a number of new stores, including home improvement stores like Lowe’s and Home Depot, as well as national restaurant chains like Chili’s, Burger King, Smashburger and more.
LBMA Podcast: Findery, Esri and Modev Founder Pete Erickson (Street Fight)
On the show: Spindle brings payments to K-Cups in the office; Mozilla launches an open source location service; Tide tries to DOOH up their Halloween Vines; Aptilo launches ad-supported free WiFi in Peru; Google maps Arlington National Cemetery; and Yihaodian launches 1000 augmented reality stores.
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