Street Fight Daily: Yelp CEO on Google’s ‘Search Monopoly,’ In-Depth Look at Jet
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…
Google Goes After the App Interstitial: Protecting Consumers or Its Own Search Monopoly? (Search Engine Land)
Jeremy Stoppelman: When it comes to apps, Google’s Web search team has a conflict of interest. The more a user downloads apps, the less likely that user is to search the Web with Google — and that jeopardizes their extremely profitable search monopoly.
Investors Have Poured More Than $220 Million Into This Man’s Plan to Beat Amazon (Business Insider)
Jet.com has raised $225 million at a $600 million valuation, the most equity funding ever in the first 12 months by a US commerce company. Here, a breakdown of Jet’s business model and a forecast of its future.
Facebook’s Ad Platform For SMBs Has Come a Long Way, But Still Has Room to Grow (Street Fight)
More and more local businesses are turning to Facebook to launch hyperlocal ad campaigns, and for good reason — the company has greatly enhanced its SMB ad offerings in the past year. As a relatively young ad medium, though, Facebook hasn’t quite mastered the game yet.
Uber is Laying the Groundwork for Perpetual Rides in San Francisco (BuzzFeed)
This week, Uber began experimenting with a new ride option called Smart Routes. The idea is drivers will be able to both pick up and drop off passengers along a specific route, which in turn allows them to quickly pick up their next passenger.
Moasis Debuts New Ad Platform, Seeks to Connect With Consumers’ Context (Street Fight)
Today the company is debuting Moasis for Advertisers, which promises a one-stop shop for collecting and predictively analyzing location-related data like weather, nearby events, and traffic. “Programmatic and mobile are virtually synonymous today,” said Moasis CMO Eric Nielsen.
AdMobilize and Verizon Partner to Monitor Ads in the Real World (TechCrunch)
AdMobilize, a monitoring and tracking technology that measures attention and traffic in stores and for outdoor advertising, is partnering with Verizon to add connectivity to its outdoor beacons.
Google Now’s Staff Exodus Reveals Hurdles for New CEO Pichai (Recode)
The trials and tribulations of Google Now reveal the hiccups Google has with incubating new products, and are particularly newsworthy now that Microsoft has strategically released an update to Bing — see something in one mobile app and, with a tap, summon information about that something via Bing — that’s nearly identical to a Now feature.
Mobile Readers Abound; the Ads, Not So Much (Wall Street Journal)
For many publishers, mobile revenue isn’t keeping pace. Selling advertising on mobile devices is proving difficult; it’s hard to show mobile users enough ads, traditional ad formats like “banners” perform miserably, and publishers can’t easily do sophisticated tracking and targeting of ads.
With $55 Million, Grand Rounds Aims to Make Health Care More Efficient (Fortune)
Grand Rounds launched in 2011 as a way to get a second opinion on serious medical situations. Today, it has expanded upon its mission to pair any patient with the most effective and appropriate physician nearby, with the promise that doing so will result in less doctor-shopping.
Forget Beacons: The Future of Retail May Be Magnetic (Entrepreneur)
Your local mall has its own unique magnetic signature that could help inform the way you shop. IndoorAtlas unveiled a new technology that, rather than merely indicating where a store is situated in an indoor setting, can pinpoint exactly where a product category or specific brand is located.
Google’s Foodie Photo Ambitions Live On in New Maps Feature (Android Police)
Google is apparently testing a new feature in Maps that will alert users when Maps has found a newly-captured photo taken at a food-related place on their device, and offer to attach that photo to a location for other users to see.
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