Street Fight Daily: Inside Food Delivery Economics, Tricky Ad Equation for Snap and Instagram

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

Inside the Brutal Economics of Food Delivery (Recode)
It’s not uncommon for venture-backed startups to operate in the red for years while pumping investor money into revenue growth. But the on-demand delivery sector has been a notorious cash burner in recent years, and Maple’s business does not appear to be an exception.

Street Culture: At Ibotta, Good Ideas ‘Come From Anywhere’ (Street Fight)
“It’s been a challenge as we grow with how to disseminate information,” the company’s HR vice-president Alison Meadows told Street Fight. “We’ve been conscious about getting the next level of leaders below the senior leaders involved in decisions, because they’re going to have to roll them out.”

Snapchat and Instagram’s Young Audiences Rarely Notice Ads on Platform (eMarketer)
Snapchat and Instagram have both become the go-to platforms for brands looking to reach teens and millennials where they hang out online. But young people are unimpressed by ads on these platforms and about a third say they don’t even see them. 

How Cisco’s Meraki Became the Largest Vendor of Bluetooth Beacon Gateways (Street Fight)
Stephen Statler: While Meraki’s routers have long had the ability to broadcast iBeacon packets, in October they released a software upgrade which enables API access to these radios, activating a major new feature. Now customers can use their Wi-Fi access points to monitor beacons from third party vendors.

Facebook Kills Off Exact Location Sharing in Nearby Friends, Adds ‘Wave’ (TechCrunch)
Facebook is still trying to help people meet up in person — with a few changes. Facebook has removed the precise location-sharing feature from Nearby Friends, which now only lets you opt-in to broadcasting your current neighborhood and approximate distance from friends.

Uber Moves Self-Driving Car Test to Arizona (Wall Street Journal)
Uber is moving a test of its self-driving cars to the friendlier environs of Arizona after suffering a regulatory defeat in California over its use of the vehicles in San Francisco.

How Startups Should Be Using Google AdWords (Search Engine Land)
Brett Middleton: Set up Google remarketing, and get back in front of the people reaching you and remind them you’re there. Use advertising as a way to accelerate your current growth, not to save your business or make a product better. You’re steps away from doing something that could change the trajectory of your business. 

A Bug in Twitter’s App Inflated Video Ad Metrics by As Much As 35% (Business Insider)
The mishap comes at a time when Twitter faces mounting pressure to grow its ad business and attract new users. The company only added about 4 million monthly active users between the second and third quarters of 2016.

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