Street Fight Daily: Google’s Increasingly App-Like Mobile Web, Mobile Sensor Project ‘CrowdSignals’
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…
Go Daddy Launches Cloud Solutions for SMBs (Street Fight)
Go Daddy has launched two new products, Cloud Servers and Cloud Applications. Both are engineered to help a web professional quickly build, test, and scale cloud solutions.
Google Is Gradually Turning Mobile Search Into an App-Like Experience (Screenwerk)
Greg Sterling: Google typically acts in self-interested ways, though it often presents its choices in terms of broader market benefits. I see Google trying to straddle the web-app divide by continuing to organize mobile web content, but providing more “answers” and a more immersive experience that is increasingly app-like. These are survival moves by Google to adapt to a fickle and rapidly changing consumer market.
CrowdSignals Aims to Create a Marketplace for Smartphone Sensor Data (New York Times)
Sensor data from smartphones lags behind as a fuel source for major research advances. CrowdSignals, a new initiative to collect, label, and pay for that data, seeks to overcome that shortfall. The organization’s approach relies less on innovation in technology than on economics and creating a marketplace.
PlaceIQ’s Mandeep Mason on Looking at Location from an International Perspective (Street Fight)
PlaceIQ’s EMEA General Manager Mandeep Mason discusses international expansion, why this is a good time for local marketing, and why local analytics need to be part of any overall media plan.
Retail Browsing Is Rapidly Shifting to Mobile, So Why Isn’t Buying? (AdAge)
Consumers want mobile buying to be simple. However, it’s often anything but for most retailers, who “are used to a two- or three-year time horizon,” says John Collison, co-founder of mobile commerce company Stripe. “But in 2016, if your technology cycle is three years and a new version of the iPhone comes out every single year, and behavior is changing, there’s a real mis-notch between the time horizons that people are used to operating on and how fast the world is changing around them.”
Case Study: NYC Restaurant Uses Automation Tools to Update Search Listings (Street Fight)
An inside look at how Paola’s Restaurant in New York City worked OpenTable, Yext, email, and Yelp to boost walk-ins and traffic. Which tools were most effective and which weren’t worth the expense?
American Apparel Offering On-Demand Delivery via Postmates Partnership (TechCrunch)
American Apparel has formally partnered with startup Postmates to offer consumers on-demand delivery (within the hour) of its clothes. Through the partnership, Postmates is able to feature the retailer’s actual, live inventory. Through Postmates Order, a product that launched just a few weeks ago, American Apparel can manage their orders and deliveries via the app and iPad provided by Postmates.
Mobile Will Dominate New Advertising Dollars Through 2018 (AdExchanger)
Mobile ad revenue will grow 128 percent by 2018, accounting for 92 percent of new global advertising dollars, according to the global ad spend forecast from ZenithOptimedia. Increased consumer use will create more mobile advertising opportunities, which will increase available inventory and, in turn, lower prices.
Amazon Sues Longtime Exec Over New Job at Target, Says Retail Rival Will Be Able to Steal Its Secrets (GeekWire)
Amazon has filed suit against a former exec, Arthur Valdez, alleging that his new, high-ranking job at Target violates the terms of the non-competition agreement that he signed as part of his Amazon employment. The suit alleges that he “cannot lead Target’s supply chain operations without referencing confidential information learned and developed by him at Amazon to drive superior performance in exactly the same areas.”
MarTech’s Growing Impact on Local, SMB, and Niche Marketing (Local Onliner)
Peter Krasilovsky: MarTech is a wild card in the new generation of marketing, taking into account not only ads and promotion, but content and experience, social and relationships, commerce and sales, data and management. The question for us is how it all ultimately applies to local, SMB, and niche marketing.
Why We Should Fear a Cashless World (The Guardian)
Dominic Frisby: We already live in a world that may be, as far as the distribution of wealth is concerned, as unequal as it’s ever been. My worry is that a cashless society may exacerbate inequality even further. It will hand yet more power to the financial sector in that banks and related fintech companies will oversee all transactions. Small businesses starting out need the cash economy. Poor people need the cash economy. The war on cash is a war on them.
Get Street Fight Daily in your inbox! Subscribe to our newsletter.
