Street Fight Daily: Beacon Tech Tightens Security, SnapChat’s Local Filters

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…

BluetoothBluetooth Low Energy Gets New Security Features (GigaOm)
The governing group has ratified a new version of the Bluetooth Low Energy standard that adds new security features preventing people from sniffing out your Bluetooth signal and using it to track your phone and devices as you move about. The new version of the standard, called Bluetooth 4.2, essentially hides the media access control (MAC) address every Bluetooth devices uses as an identifier.

Are Community News Sites and Investors Ready for Each Other? (Street Fight)
Tom Grubisich: Venture-capital and angel investors have been avoiding digital community news — but there’s no mystery about why. There are some profitable one-offs, but most investors aren’t interested in one-offs. They want to put their money in the possibility of a good-sized payoff. That will only come with community news that is part of a network.

Snapchat Opens Geofilters So Anyone Can Submit Location-Based Artwork (TechCrunch)
Snapchat has opened up its Geofilters tool to a broader community this morning, letting anyone submit artwork that will appear as a geo-targeted filter on Snapchat photos.The feature works by letting artists create filters for certain locations, which will only show up for users if they’re in that area.

Google Rolls Out Major Update To Google My Business Guidelines (Blumenthals)
Mike Blumenthal: Google has rolled out a major update to their My Business (ie Places) Guidelines. The new Guideline offers much more concrete examples and clarifies a number of situations particularly multi-practitioner listings and their naming.

Goldman Is Helping Uber Raise Money From Rich People (Bloomberg View)
Dan Primack at Fortune reported that Uber is also seeking to raise several hundred million dollars from Goldman Sachs private wealth management clients. In 2011, Goldman tried to do a very similar deal for Facebook — raising money from private wealth clients prior to the initial public offering — and it became a horrible nightmare.

Groupon Registers Big Jump In Holiday Weekend Sales (Chicago Business Journal)
Groupon said today its holiday weekend sales in North America were the most-successful four days ever in the checkered six-year history of the online deals bazaar. What’s more, Black Friday and Cyber Monday were the two biggest single sales days in Groupon North America’s history.

It’s Not Always about What’s on Paper (Wall Street Journal)
Matt Maloney: I’ve said it before and it’s something that I believe even more today — hiring great people is critical to success. As one of GrubHub’s founders, I’ve been involved in hiring and building our team over the last 10 years, and at this point I’ve figured out a few key attributes that help me find the right employees.

The Dynamically-Delivered Future of Mobile Apps (Recode)
Chris Maddern: The concept, called “dynamic delivery,” involves delivering an app to your phone, not directly because you told your phone to install that app, but rather in response to a request for some content or action that is best delivered by installing that app.

Loup: The Love Child of Uber and a Bus Service (Recode)
If you were to create a hybrid of a public bus service and Uber, you’d get Loup. The startup runs black town cars on a set route throughout San Francisco, and riders book trips on their phones.

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