Street Fight Daily: Facebook Mobile Ads, Leaky LinkedIn
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.
Facebook Would Like to Sell You a Mobile Ad (All Things D)
Facebook will now let advertisers place messages on its mobile apps, without having to pay for desktop placement as well. Recall that Facebook didn’t have any mobile ads at all until the end of February, when it rolled out a plan where marketers could claim part of users’ feeds with content that doubled as ads.
LinkedIn’s Leaky Mobile App Has Access to Your Meeting Notes (NYT/Bits Blog)
LinkedIn mobile app subscribers may be surprised to learn that the calendar entries on their iPhones or iPads — which may include details about meeting locations, participants, dial-in information, passwords and sensitive meeting notes — are transmitted back to LinkedIn’s servers without their knowledge.
Foursquare’s Luedorf Says Users Still in Focus, Over Revenue (Street Fight)
Foursquare VP of business development Holger Luedorf said his company is focused more on user growth than monetization—at least for the time being. “Right now we are not really focusing on making money,” said Luedorf. Still, Foursquare’s push toward monetization is imminent. The company “just recently” hired a salesperson, and Luedorf said plans to monetize are coming “this year.”
Jack Dorsey Backs Away from Twitter (SAI)
Owen Thomas: Two sources have told us that Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s executive chairman, has been spending less time at the message-broadcasting service and more as CEO of Square, his payments startup. At Twitter, he has a strong CEO in Dick Costolo, who has steadied the ship after a long stretch of turmoil, while Dorsey is a super-hands-on CEO at Square.
Groupon’s Evolution Is Hurting Facebook (But Helping Google) (Forbes)
Jeff Bercovici: In a note about Groupon Tuesday, Benchmark Co. analyst Clayton Moran looks at how the discounts dealer is “transitioning from customer acquisition marketing to customer activation.” Groupon is only one advertiser, of course. But it’s one that spends tens of millions of dollars annually on Facebook ads — or did, until it decided it had enough customers for now.
Launch of Airtime Hobbled by Glitches (WSJ)
Airtime, the new start-up unveiled Tuesday by the former co-founders of Napster, had a little trouble showing it is ready for prime time. At a celebrity-filled media launch in New York, co-founders Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning took the wraps off their new live-video chat service after a yearlong gestation period, but the launch was marred by a series of glitches that made the technology virtually unworkable.
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