Street Fight Daily: Microsoft Building Its Own Bot, UberMedia Expanding Attribution Business

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

Microsoft is Building Its Own Bot to Rival Google Assistant and Viv (The Next Web)
Conversational bots, which can understand complex voice commands and complete tasks for you, are quickly becoming the rage. Earlier this month, the inventors of Siri showed off their creation Viv, and Google unleashed Google Assistant. Microsoft has now let slip that it’s also working on a bot to help get things done.

Openings and New Hires at Blueshift, Upserve, OpenTable and Flok (Street Fight)
Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. This week’s edition includes moves and new openings at Foursquare, Thumbtack, and Search Influence.

UberMedia Connects Cross-Channel Ad Impressions to Actual Store Visits (TechCrunch)
Mobile ad company UberMedia is expanding its measurement and attribution business in a big way. UberMedia is taking its location-based attribution approach and using it to assess the effectiveness of a company’s ads even if they’re not running through UberMedia — whether they’re desktop display ads, video ads, mobile, social or search.

Looking for a Sustainable Business Model for a Regional Newspaper? Start at the Star Tribune (Poynter)
Rick Edmonds: Star Tribune revenues are up slightly so far this year. That was after a small decline last year and holding even in 2014 and 2015. That’s not a trajectory that will provoke envy at Google or Vox. But running fast to avoid big revenue losses — and now posting some growth — is cumulatively at least 20 percent better than the industry norm.

Why Online-to-Offline Commerce is a Trillion-Dollar Opportunity (Inc.)
Equipped with O2O tools and services, business owners would have an unprecedented level of accuracy in their online marketing and, for the first time ever, would be able to reliably determine ROI from online advertising. Until recently, that technological ability simply did not exist.

Raise Report: New Funding for Bridge2 Solutions, BigCommerce, Big Panda (Street Fight)
Every two weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This edition’s raises include new rounds for Unacast and Grey Jean Technologies.

Uber Knows When You’ll Pay Surge Pricing, But Promises Not to Use It Against You (New York Magazine/SelectAll)
Uber’s head of economic research, Keith Chen, says that people are willing to accept up to 9.9 times surge pricing if their phones are about to go dead. Data about user batteries is collected because the app uses that information to know when to switch into low-power mode.

Location Meets Transaction Data in Cardlytics’ Cross-Device Measurement Push (AdExchanger)
Cardlytics, which helps advertisers like Starbucks activate audience data from bank partners like Bank of America, Citibank and PNC, is working with Drawbridge to assess how cross-device exposures affect online and in-store purchases.

Move Over, Text Ads: How Data Feeds Are Driving New Search Experiences (Search Engine Land)
Christi Olson: If you haven’t done it already, now would be a great time to take a fresh look — or even a first look — at how data feeds can reinvigorate your online marketing strategy and prepare your business for an undeniable shift in the search space.

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