Street Fight Daily: Lyft Seeks $500 Million in New Funding, Snap Values Itself at $24B on Eve of IPO

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Lyft Seeking At Least $500 Million in New Funding… Snap Officially Sets Stock Price at $17, Raising $3.4 Billion in IPO… Instacart to Raise $400 Million as Other On-Demand Startups Die Around It…

Foursquare Releases Pilgrim SDK, Allowing Third Parties to Access Its Location Intel

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Apps and brands can now get their hands on some of the technology Foursquare uses to pinpoint where smartphones are in real-time — and get a clearer picture of when people move from location to location.

Cheetah Ads Debuts, Racing to Make Mobile Ads Smarter Through AI

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Mobile app and content developer Cheetah Mobile has taken the wraps off its rebranding today, and is showing off the renewed focus of its mobile ad business. The move is intended to unify elements of the company — in particular utility apps and mobile content — for mobile advertising.

Street Fight Daily: Uber CEO Berates Driver on Video, Yelp Buys Nowait for $40 Million

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… In Video, Uber CEO Argues with Driver Over Falling Fares… Yelp Acquires Restaurant Tech Startup Nowait in $40 Million Deal… Snap, On Cusp of IPO, Looks Set for Strong Debut…

5 Self-Service Platforms for Mobile Analytics

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The vast majority of mobile analytics platforms have traditionally been aimed at the largest developers, leaving a huge swath of the market untapped. Here are five examples of self-service mobile analytics platforms that developers in the hyperlocal space can try.

How Turning Loyalty Campaigns Into a Data Play Transformed Empyr

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Coaxing more customers to walk in and shop is what every merchant wants out of a loyalty program, but it is not always clear how effective these campaigns are. That’s why attribution — knowing for sure that new business resulted from an SMB’s marketing efforts — is such a holy grail in local.

Street Fight Daily: How Brands Leverage Snapchat Spectacles, Mobile App Installs Drop Sharply

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… How 5 Brands, Including GrubHub and Hyatt, Are Using Snapchat Spectacles… Mobile Boom Stalls, with Double-Digital Decline in App Installs… What Makes People Buy from a Brand They Follow on Social Media?…

Zuckerberg Raises the Right Questions – Local News Should Answer Them

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Mark Zuckerberg posted a remarkable manifesto on Feb. 16 about our fractured communities and how to heal them. But why was Facebook’s founder and CEO saying this first? Why aren’t America’s news publishers, especially local ones, defining the crisis and offering their blueprints for solving it? Zuckerberg’s manifesto was 5,735 words long, but its core was these 138 […]

Street Fight Daily: How Waze Will Scoop Up Driver Data, News Orgs Stick by Platforms

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Waze Digs into Your Car’s Dashboard… Report: Despite Monetization Concerns, News Orgs Are All In On Platforms… If Anyone’s Going to Buy Directly from a Chatbot, It’s Millenials…

Raise Report: New Funding for ReplyYes, Voysis, Bolstra

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Every two weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes funding for NewsWhip, uShip, Sun Basket, and TVSquared.

Street Fight Daily: Retailers Sign Up for Texting Via Android, Dash Turns Cars into Data Troves

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Wants Businesses to Text with Android Messaging Service… Dash Aims to Turn Driving Machines into Data-Driven Machines… How Retailers Can Best Position Themselves to Thrive in an Age of Disruption…

Investment Firms Come to the Forefront Among Owners of Local Newspapers

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Today seven investment entities control 349 daily newspapers, well ahead of either the 196 belonging to long-established private publishers that include companies like Hearst and Advance Publications or the 161 public publishers that include legacy chains like Gannett and McClatchy.

Marriage of Listings, Data, and Social Drive Better Results, Says SweetIQ CEO

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A long-brewing change is transforming the way local business listings get used, says SweetIQ’s Mohannad El-Barachi. In a recent interview with he tells Street Fight that the integration of more features, such as chat or connections to social media, opens up new ways for businesses to bring in customers.

Inform Your Multichannel Customer Experience Strategy

Street Fight Daily: Viber Launches In-App Shopping, Small-Ball Retailers and Google Shopping

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Chat App Viber to Launch In-app Shopping with Brands Including Macy’s… 7 Ways Small Retailers Can Compete with Retail Giants Using Google Shopping… SocialRank Realtime Helps Marketers Get More Proactive on Social Media…

A New Era for Street Fight

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After nearly six years as a bootstrapped independent business, Street Fight has been acquired by Brandify — and we couldn’t be more excited. The pairing will provide resources to significantly expand Street Fight’s content, events, and research, and will allow us to launch new offerings to create greater value for the industry.

BUST: A Hard Landing as Soft Surroundings Files for Bankruptcy

Urban Outfitters Increases Conversions With Contextualized In-App Messaging

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Urban Outfitters has long used its brand-owned app to deliver messages to customers in the hope of driving conversions. What PlaceIQ and Appboy were able to do was heighten the value being delivered by in-app messaging, using a combination of location and customer activity data.

Street Fight: Amazon Responds to Walmart’s Shipping Challenge, Mobile Engagement Drops in Q4

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Strikes Back at Walmart’s Free 2-Day Shipping Offer… Mobile Engagement Sees Unprecedented Drop in Q4 2016… Why Facebook and Snapchat Are Spinning Off Mobile Incubators…

How Does Google Determine the Authority of Local Entities?

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“Each of these sites that Google trusts might calculate authority in a different way, but if Google can verify the relationship to the local entity, they can apply that authority to the ranking of the local listing,” writes Mike Blumenthal to David Mihm.

6 Ways Merchants Can Prepare For the Rise in Voice Search

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Forty-two percent of U.S. consumers already say they’ve used voice assistants in the last three months, and industry forecasters are predicting that 20% of all user interactions with smartphones will take place through these assistants within the next three years. Here are six ways that local businesses can start preparing.

Street Fight Daily: Retailers Emphasize Mobile Web Over Apps, Verizon and Yahoo Close Revised Deal

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The Mobile Web is Quietly Killing Off Retail Apps… Why Verizon Decided to Still Buy Yahoo After Big Data Breaches… ‘More Options and Misunderstandings’: Media Buying on Snapchat Confuses Advertisers…