Snap Scan Shines New Light on the Company’s Local Discovery Ambitions

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Snapchat’s ambition to become a socially fueled local discovery engine recently got a boost with Snap Scan, a visual search tool that makes the world searchable and shoppable. Connecting dots over several years, Snap’s geo-local efforts include Geofilters, Snap Map, Local Place Promote, and Local Lenses. 

Innovation Brief: Facebook, Zoom & Delivery Robots

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On a semi-weekly basis, Street Fight’s Innovation Brief series aggregates and analyzes happenings from across the technology and media spheres. This week, we look at Facebook’s latest ad reforms, Zoom’s ‘Focus Mode,’ and delivery robots going to college.

Is Snap Building a Local Discovery Engine?

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Snap wants to compete with Google Maps as a local search and discovery engine. That’s a tall order, but Snap could have an edge in socially-fueled map results. As often, it’s all about the data.

Is Amazon Primed for the Data Privacy Era?

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In a world that favors first-party networks — especially those with ample web traffic outside of iOS apps — it doesn’t get much bigger than Amazon. The question is if the e-commerce giant can attract advertisers en masse with the reach of its ad network plus the unfettered targeting and first-party contextual relevance of the world’s largest online store.

Innovation Brief: Facebook, Twitter & Tinder

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On a semi-weekly basis, Street Fight’s Innovation Brief series aggregates and analyzes happenings from across the technology and media spheres. This week, we look at Facebook’s e-commerce play, Twitter Ticketed Spaces, and Tinder’s latest integrations. 

Innovation Brief: Amazon, Apple, and FCC Alerts

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On a semi-weekly basis, Street Fight’s Innovation Brief series aggregates and analyzes happenings from across the technology and media spheres. This week, we look at Amazon’s Ring Car Cam, Apple’s new picture-in-picture feature, and the FCC’s latest alerts. 

Innovation Brief: Google, Facebook & Netflix

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On a semi-weekly basis, Street Fight’s Innovation Brief series aggregates and analyzes happenings from across the technology and media spheres. This week, we look at Google’s latest machine learning, Facebook’s Watch play, and Netflix getting into e-commerce. 

Mapping Innovations Accelerate for the Post-Covid Era

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The latest mapping innovations can be summed up in the announcements coming out of the last three major developer conferences. As we’re in the midst of developer conference season, this includes Google I/O, Snap’s Partner Summit, and Apple’s flagship WWDC. Let’s tackle those one at a time.

Innovation Brief: Instacart and Instagram

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M7 Innovations’ Matt Maher discusses Instacart’s new 30-minute-or-less delivery promise and Instagram tweaking its algorithm to avoid blocking pertinent content.

Innovation Brief: AT&T, Cloudflare & Twitter

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M7 Innovations’ Matt Maher discusses AT&T’s new powerhouse, Cloudflare’s latest authentication solution, and Twitter subscriptions. 

Amazon’s Retail-as-a-Service Expands into Payments, AR, and Salons

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As Amazon continues to mature, it needs to find revenue growth in new, creative places. The company’s booming advertising business is one such conquest. Iterating on the AWS playbook by bringing tech-fueled logistical innovations to physical stores could be another.

Innovation Brief: Instagram, Rockets, and Drones

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M7 Innovations’ Matt Maher discusses Instagram’s creator economy, commercial space travel, and drone delivery.

Innovation Brief: Microsoft, Twitch, and Autonomous Pizza

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M7 Innovations’ Matt Maher discusses Microsoft’s Nuance acquisition, virtual influencers reinventing the livestream, and autonomous pizza delivery.

Augment My Town: Local’s Next Turf Battle

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AR fuses the digital and physical. So, could it assist in the vexing and longstanding challenge of closing the online/offline gap? We’re starting to see signals that it might. 

Innovation Brief: Yum Brands, Discord, and Robots

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Welcome to Street Fight’s new Innovation Brief series. On a semi-weekly basis, it aggregates and analyzes happenings from across the technology and media spheres. This week, we look at text-to-order QSR, Microsoft’s Discord ambitions, and Boston Dynamics’ latest. 

What Emerging Tech is Driving Localized Brand Marketing?

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Running an emerging tech-driven digital agency, Maher is on the front lines of marketing innovation for brand clients like Panera and Bolle. For both of those campaigns, there was a local component, including Panera’s in-store AR integrations and Bolle’s local activations at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

To anticipate the upcoming Street Fight Summit and Maher’s speaking role, we sat down with him for his view on the drivers and dynamics of digital marketing. Here’s our dialogue with Maher on the biggest brand marketing trends and value drivers he’s tracking.

How Will Retail Redefine Itself in the ’20s?

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This post is the latest in our “Disrupting Retail” series. It’s our editorial focus for the month of February, and you can see the rest of the series here.  One positive phenomenon of the Covid era has been accelerated digital transformation in traditional sectors. This could be a blessing in disguise, as sectors like retail could […]

Can Immersive Marketing Boost Local Businesses?

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One of the emerging technologies driving innovation amid Covid is AR. For example, its ability to add real-life interactivity to e-commerce gained traction in 2020. This could extend to a post-Covid world of “touchless” retail for in-aisle virtual product interaction.

What’s the Fate of Location Intelligence in 2021?

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The biggest thing we predict is location intelligence sector consolidation. This has already gotten started in 2020, considering Foursquare’s merger with Factual, and smaller deals like X-Mode’s acquisition of Location Sciences and Near’s recent Teemo acquisition.

Can Mobile Gaming Boost Multi-Location Brands?

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Climbing Pokémon Go revenue is mostly from in-app purchases, where players pay for digital in-game elements to accelerate their leveling up. But Pokémon Go maker Niantic is also looking to diversify its business model with other revenue streams — most notably, local advertising.