Street Fight Daily: Urban Airship Acquires Tello, Locu Snags Google Exec
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.
Urban Airship Acquires Tello, Maker Of PassTools For Apple’s Passbook, Because Not All Brands Need Fully Featured Apps (TechCrunch)
A little over a year after Urban Airship’s acquisition of location startup SimpleGeo, the company has moved to once again expand its feature set by acquiring venture-backed Tello in an all-stock deal. The startup had initially been focused on building real-time feedback tools for business customers, but had more recently refocused its efforts on PassTools, a visual pass builder for Apple’s Passbook.
Locu Snags Google Now Exec Keir Mierle to Head Engineering (Pandodaily)
As things heat up in the hyper-local data game, real-time small-business information database startup Locu is beefing up its senior team. The company founded in 2011 by a team of MIT grads has recruited former Google software engineer and key member of the Google Now team Keir Mierle as its new director of engineering.
As Mobile Maps Competition Heats Up, Google Fine Tunes Maps API for Android (GigaOm)
Google has remained mostly mum on its plans for a Maps app for Apple’s mobile OS, but on Monday, the company announced an update to the Android API for Google Maps. With the update will come new, easier-to-display vector-based maps, better 2D and 3D maps, as well as indoor mapping.
Big Brother as Your BFF (AdWeek)
Alexandre Mars: While location-based mobile advertising has pundits debating privacy issues, Americans are quietly, but quickly, embracing it. Forget about Temple Run and Words With Friends; let’s celebrate the mass-market adoption of location awareness and a new generation of apps that millions of people can’t do without.
Back to the Future with Low Power FM (Engadget)
Holiday gift idea for next year: your own hyperlocal radio station. It’s a gift from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Non-profit community radio stations, which broadcast in a range from a few hundred yards to about three miles, can be a mode of self-expression, a valuable provider of town information and an antidote to radio homogenization up and down the broadcast dial.
Foursquare Is the No. 3 Mobile App (New York Post)
The New York startup, headed by CEO Dennis Crowley, is behind only Facebook and Twitter in the mobile app rankings, a new Nielsen report shows. Foursquare’s unique monthly visitors in the US reached 10.4 million, a 118 percent increase from last year.
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