Street Fight Daily: 09.07.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.
Add Groupon Inc. to the list of hot new Web companies having second thoughts about whether now is a good time to go public. The daily deals website, which is expected to fetch a $20 billion valuation upon its stock-market debut, canceled its investor roadshow and is reevaluating plans for an initial public offering in the face of stock-market volatility. (Wall Street Journal)
Location-based services are becoming more commonplace tools for mobile users, but check-in services appear to be facing a tough road to adoption, according to new figures from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The organization found that 28 percent of American adults use some form of mobile and social location-based services to get directions or recommendations, or to check into a location. But Pew found that only 4 percent of adults use their phones specifically for check-in services like Foursquare and Gowalla, the same as in November. (GigaOm)
Amid much hoopla and skepticism about Patch, AOL’s group of 800-plus hyperlocal news sites, little has been said about the sites themselves. How much news do they produce? How do their users interact with them? To find out, Anna Tarkov took a closer look at four Patch sites around the country for a month. (Knight Digital Media Center)
Does the era of the always-on location-aware device demand a new genre of privacy settings? More robust geo-privacy settings, perhaps? That’s the motivation behind Flickr geofences, a newly added precautionary and practical feature that allows users to map out zones and set distinct location sharing settings for those areas. (Mashable)
Often, small businesses focus on the power of the mobile phone strictly as a productivity device. But the marketing types within SMBs shouldn’t overlook the technology’s emerging potential as a market device. The holy grail of this platform? Location-based services. (ZDNet)
“Within the next two years, I predict a revolutionary shift—spearheaded by Google—in our ability to integrate data across online marketing efforts and offline purchasing behavior, writes Adlucent’s Michael Griffin. “At last, marketers will be able to bridge the gap between these two worlds, which have been disconnected largely because of technical obstacles.” (Business Insider)
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