Street Fight Daily: 09.20.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.
Amazon Local, the e-retail giant’s recently launched daily deals initiative, apparently does not count the space’s no. 2 player — LivingSocial — as a true competitor. LivingSocial, which received $175 million in funding from Amazon last December, is selling the majority of the ads for Amazon Local — a platform that’s been dramatically expanded in the last seven weeks and now appears in 44 markets. (Clickz)
Success breeds nothing if not copycats, and few industries have seen more imitators in the last 12 months than the daily deals space. But companies looking for hefty exits might be sobered by a new report on the deals space that notes the price of acquisitions has been plummeting. (Fast Company)
Foursquare has rolled out a new privacy option to help prevent users from unwittingly sharing home addresses with strangers. The update enables the user to designate a Foursquare locale as a private residence by selecting “Home” as the venue’s primary category. (Mashable)
David Cohn, who launched community-funded reporting site Spot.Us in 2008, will be conducting research on economic models of online journalism publications at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and help to develop business products for supporting hyperlocal news sites. (Poynter)
Local recommendations mobile app Alfred has arrived in a new, iPad-optimized format, which includes deeper integration with Facebook. The optional Facebook Connect sign-in feature enables Alfred to better learn about its users’ preferences by mining Facebook data for likes and check-ins. (TechCrunch)
Gabe Zichermann, CEO of Gamification Co., proposes that in order for location-based services to really work, they must be both fun and social. For example, Foursquare is mostly played by people on their own wanting to win badges or become mayor of somewhere, offering relatively little value to companies, or the people playing. (Nokia Blog)
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