Uber and Foursquare Co-Founders Lead $15M Investment in Dining App Reserve

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Expa, the startup accelerator founded by Uber co-founder Garrett Camp and Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai, has led a $15 million venture investment in Reserve. The round included a number of celebrity investors including actors Jon Favreau and Jared Leto as well as rapper Will.i.am…

Yelp Acquires Eat24, Bringing the Battle to GrubHub

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The company announced Tuesday it had acquired Eat24, a food ordering service, for $134 million in both cash and stock. The acquisition positions Yelp on a collision course with GrubHub, the online ordering firm that went public last year after merging with the New York-based Seamless.

On-Demand Local Services: The End of SMB Advertising as We Know It?

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On-demand local services flip the traditional local advertising model. Instead of marketing proactively to generate demand, that demand is captured and revealed for service providers to react in real time. Put another way: Marketing is replaced with a commerce engine…

7 M-Commerce Strategies for SMBs

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SMBs that don’t have mobile commerce enabled are practically inviting shoppers who can’t wait until they get home to make purchases to switch their business over to larger retail outlets. Here are seven m-commerce strategies from experts in the field…

LBMA Podcast: Samsung’s Mobile Payments, Trippeo CEO

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; Adobe’s Target and Campaign services; Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act; Drones for Good; Maponics Communities; Unacast & TCS partner; Merrell moves into virtual reality; American Express + HUSH; Facebook Place Tips; Dallas Mavericks partner with Tixsee + Adarsh Pallian of Trippeo.

Grubhub Has Made Its Biggest Move Since the Seamless Merger

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In the most important move since its merger with Seamless, Grubhub has acquired two delivery companies in an effort to build its own delivery network. The move marks a transition in strategy…

How the Rise of Online Dating Helped Thumbtack Raise $100M

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Street Fight recently caught up with Thumbtack’s CEO Marco Zappacosta to talk about the company’s meteoric growth, the challenges facing the on-demand economy, and how online a service industry is changing — whether professionals like it or not…

How Hyperlocal Tech Is Reviving Brick-and-Mortar Sales

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Retailers have a plethora of customer data and technologies at their disposal which can be effectively combined to personalize the brick-and-mortar shopping experience. By tapping into the rich analytics and capabilities of these cross-functional offerings, they can be well positioned to regain market share..

Why Instacart’s $2 Billion Valuation Doesn’t Spell Bubble

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No story has rekindled concerns about valuations like the ascent of Instacart, a local logistics firm whose recently raised $220 million at a $2 billion dollar valuation. We caught up with Instacart’s Nilam Ganenthiran to talk about how a delivery network could reshape the competitive landscape of local grocery markets…

Street Fight Daily: Expedia Buys Travelocity, Private Equity Eyes Digital First

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyExpedia Buys Travelocity, Merging Two of the Web’s Biggest Travel SitesCerberus, Apollo Bidding for Digital First Media (Capital New York)… For Digital, SMBs Need Somebody—and Money—to Lean On (eMarketer)…

Street Fight Daily: Uber Paves Way to IPO, GM Sells Ads In Cars

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyUber Closes $1.6 Billion in Financing (New York Times)… GM Is Beaming Advertisements Into Your Car (Fast Company)… Sensory Marketing Is the Next Frontier in Mobile Advertising (AdAge)…

How Google Wallet’s Ex-Product Lead Plans To Tell Retailers What You Buy

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The company offers retailers a chance to link the mountain of data, available about consumers online, to the growing, but relatively opaque, credit card data collected by retailers in stores. Marc Freed-Finnegan, the company’s chief executive, spoke to Street Fight recently about the shift toward a more intelligent brick-and-mortar retail experience…

Lowe’s-Backed Porch Raises $65 Million to Target Angie’s List

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With the second largest home improvement retailer in its corner, the Seattle-based startup has raised a $65 million round of funding to beat out a set of cash-rich startups vying to help people manage their next kitchen remodeling…

Street Fight Daily: Google Eyes Softcard, Lyft Seeks Mega-Funding

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyGoogle Is In Talks With Mobile Payments Company Softcard (TechCrunch)… Lyft Seeking New Mega-Funding to Battle Uber (Recode)… Are Facebook And Yelp Losing The Support Of Small Businesses? (Pando)…

9 Keys to Launching a Successful Beacon Program

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One of the biggest questions from retailers in the coming year will likely be how they can better implement beacon programs at their stores. We asked top executives from the hyperlocal industry for their take on what’s really necessary to launch a successful beacon program…

How ZocDoc Grew Its Healthcare Booking Site Into a National Business

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Street Fight recently caught up with Anna Elwood, vice president of operations at ZocDoc to talk about how the company built up its customer service, how it balances people and technology, and how it decides where to go next…

Why Local Marketing Is a Function of Commerce, Not Media

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I’ve come to believe that the initial narrative about digital — the one about eyeballs simply moving online — actually impedes an effective analysis of the local marketing industry. Once we see local marketing as a function of commerce (ad not media) we start to find a more dramatic shift than previously thought.

Street Fight Daily: Apple Watch Meets Beacon, Foursquare’s Uncertain Growth

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…The New Foursquare: People Are Checking In, But They May Not Be Staying (New York Business Journal)… Google Results For “Car Insurance” Could Look Different Very Soon (Search Engine Land)… Shopify Preparing for Dual U.S.-Canada Initial Public Offering in 2015 (Wall Street Journal)…

6 Platforms Merchants Can Use for Real-Time Customer Interaction

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New customer interaction solutions are using mobile and location technology for enhanced customer experiences. In many cases, these hyperlocal tools give business owners a way to interact with customers in real-time and resolve problems before complaints start showing up online. Here are six of them…

How Ordering Liquor Online Could Open Up the Local Marketing Industry

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The adoption of Internet-connected commerce systems, from consumer-facing networks such as Drizly to modern point-of-sale networks such as Square, is a key element in the shift of local marketing dollars to digital…