Street Fight Daily: Square Rolls Out Starbucks Deal, Waze Launches Ads
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.
7,000 Starbucks Locations Added to the Square Wallet (AllThingsD)
Starbucks is now accepting Square’s mobile payment application at roughly 7,000 of its stores as part of a wide-ranging agreement between the two companies. The roll out is right on schedule, coming just three months after the partnership was announced in August.
Waze Begins Monetization Push with Location-Guided Ads (GigaOm)
Crowd-sourced navigation app Waze is launching its own ad platform, allowing advertisers to insert ads that users can see on their maps and search results when they navigate to their destination. Waze believes these “location-guided” ads can succeed because they incorporate where a user is headed.
Trulia’s Sales Surge as Real Estate Agents Use Mobile (Bloomberg Businessweek)
Trulia, the real estate- information website that sold shares to the public in September, said third-quarter sales surged 76 percent as agents and advertisers bolstered spending on mobile devices and the housing market showed signs of recovery. Revenue climbed to $18.5 million from $10.5 million a year earlier, the San Francisco-based company said yesterday in a statement.
Foursquare Spreads Out A Bit: Now Lets You Mention Friends On Facebook Who Don’t Use The Service (TechCrunch)
Today, Foursquare wanted to let everyone know that you can check-in with a friend, even if they’re not using Foursquare. This is important because the service has been around for a while and risks its userbase leveling out and becoming stagnant.
Four Stories of Small Businesses Surviving After Sandy (The Wall Street Journal)
While some business owners anticipate financial relief from insurance payouts, many others lacked proper flooding or business-interruption coverage in the wake of Sandy. Roughly 25% of small businesses fail to reopen after a major disaster, according to the Institute for Business & Home Safety, a Tampa, Fla.-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting businesses and communities from natural disasters.
Walk in a Mall, Receive a Mobile Coupon (The New York Times)
RetailMeNot, one of the leading coupon Web sites, is trying to offer coupons for mall shoppers via their cellphones. The idea is the same as paper coupons, except now they are delivered by RetailMeNot’s new iPhone app when a shopper walks near one of hundreds of malls across the country.
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