Street Fight Daily: PayPal Here’s Squeeze on Square; Truth in Online Ad Numbers; Groupon Fines

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.

How PayPal Here Could Lay the Hurt on Square and Others (GigaOm)
What we’re seeing from PayPal is not just an attempt to dislodge Square. The new dongle and accompanying app for merchants reveals the company’s larger ambitions to take payments to the physical world. That road runs through Square territory in the small business market, but PayPal wants it all, whether it’s Home Depot-sized national retailers or individual mom-and-pop stores.

What’s ‘Reality’ When Calculating Online Ad Numbers for Local TV & Radio? (BIA/Kelsey)
In 2011 local television stations saw a 19.0% increase in their online revenues to $536 million for total industry online revenues, while local radio stations saw a 15.1% increase to $439 million for total industry online revenues. What’s driving these numbers? In one word: assets. From valuable local content, to cross-promotional opportunities between on and off-air, and a trained sales staff that understands the local market and the advertiser community, the core assets of local stations give them a competitive footing in the online arena.

More Papers Put Faith in Daily Deals and Tablet Payments as Profits Shrink (PaidContent)
Newspapers were later than the daily deals sites to devise an engaging online local ad proposition. Now Trinity Mirror says it will spend £10 million on its new “Happli” over the next two years, expecting to reap annual revenue of £20 million by 2014.

Groupon UK Told to Clean Up After Record Complaints (GigaOm)
After an investigation that was started in December by the Office of Fair Trading — Britain’s equivalent of the Federal Trade Commission — the site was told that it had breached consumer regulations on a wide range of occasions and given a three month deadline to fix its wrongdoing, or face legal action.

Amazon to offer $10 gift cards for $5 (Fortune)
It’s a bid to boost customer interest in the nine-month-old AmazonLocal service, which is one of several deal sites that sprang up after Groupon’s success. “Some folks, even if they’re Amazon customers, don’t know about us yet,” says AmazonLocal vice president Mike George. “This is going to draw a whole bunch of people to check us out.”

Going Loco: Everplaces and Circleme Hit Public Beta (GigaOm)
Apps like Foursquare and Path continue to make plenty of noise, but there certainly haven’t been any clear winners yet; something that is merely encouraging more companies to keep trying to solve the puzzle. Witness two European startups that are both going into public beta on Thursday — Everplaces and Circleme — and both think they’ve got twists on the SoLoMo formula that they hope will make them stand out from the crowd.

AOL Snaps Up Hyperlocal Photosharing App Hipster (TechCrunch)
CEO Doug Ludlow confirmed the acquisition to us in an email, saying he will serve as director of mobile product management, a job that will involve, in part, being an evangelist for Aol’s mobile efforts to other mobile teams and startups.

When Conversations Lead to Mobile Searches (MediaPost)
Mumford shared data from a Roy’s Restaurants ads case study. She said the company achieved 800% return on investment with hyperlocal advertising and mobile-only campaigns. After realizing that mobile traffic outperformed desktop traffic in click-through rates and cost per clicks, Roy’s created a separate mobile-only campaign  to maximize the number of calls and clicks, using hyperlocal location extensions to better target mobile customers.

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