Street Fight Daily: Apple Apologizes, Foursquare Partners with Open Table
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.
Apple Apologizes for Misstep on Maps (New York Times)
Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, released an apologetic letter to customers on Friday, making the remarkable suggestion that they try alternative map services from rivals like Microsoft and Google while Apple improves its own maps. “We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers, and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better,” Mr. Cook wrote.
Foursquare Keeps Moving into Local Search with Open Table Reservations (GigaOm)
Foursquare and Open Table’s new partnership is just the latest in the location-based app’s moves into the local search arena, challenging popular resources like Yelp by aggregating user check-ins to provide personalized recommendations. Booking tables seems like the next step in these moves.
Nokia Seals Mapping Deal With Oracle (Wall Street Journal)
Nokia, looking to increase use of its mapping software, will unveil a new deal with Oracle intended to give Oracle’s stable of customers access to Nokia’s growing vault of map data and location services. The deal, set to be announced Monday at the OracleWorld conference in San Francisco, is seen by Nokia executives as a route to significantly expanding Nokia’s mapping services, which compete head to head with Google Maps.
Urban Airship Unveils New Geotargeting Service (Media Post)
App notification and messaging platform Urban Airship on Monday launched a new service for delivering location-targeted messages in apps. The company’s Location Messaging Service allows marketers to combine a user’s current location and location history, along with in-app behaviors and interests to enhance the relevance of mobile messaging.
Small Business Advertisers Like Facebook’s Immediacy, But Not Its Metrics (Mashable)
One of the major complaints from small business owners on Facebook is that there’s no way to measure real-time activity or to distinguish that the people who were engaging with the Page the day before aren’t the same ones engaging with the Page the next day. The quality of data on Facebook still pales in comparison to Google, where you can track a consumer’s journey from a search to clicking through an ad to actually buying a product.
Socialize’s New Ad Platform Turns Passbook Passes Into Mobile Ads (TechCrunch)
There have been Passbook loyalty card and coupon creation apps, tools to send Passbook mobile coupons via SMS, and now this – a solution that turns a Passbook pass into a 320×50 mobile ad unit that can be shown anywhere. The Passbook Ad Platform comes from Socialize, the startup offering developers a drop-in social platform for their mobile applications
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