Street Fight Daily: Groupon a Tough Sell, TripAdvisor Changes Hands

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.

When Does Groupon — Still at More Than 80 Percent Off — Become a Deal for Someone? (AllThingsD)
Sources close to Google — which had offered $6 billion for the company before it went public — said that Google has not been contemplating a second foray into acquiring Groupon. The same is true for eBay, said sources, and Amazon is an unlikely buyer because it already owns a stake in LivingSocial, the second-largest daily deals provider.

TripAdvisor Shifts to Malone (The Wall Street Journal)
John Malone’s Liberty Interactive bought control of TripAdvisor, snapping up most of Chairman Barry Diller’s stake in the travel-information website for about $300 million. Mr. Diller only owned 3% of the company, but he was able to win such a premium thanks to a proxy he held that allowed him to vote supervoting stock in TripAdvisor owned by Liberty.

Verizon Responds to FCC Complaint Over Blocking of Google Wallet (Droid-Life)
Over a year after launch, Google Wallet is still not available to Verizon’s NFC-equipped phones. Verizon’s argument, which is laid out in a response to an FCC complaint, suggests that since Google Wallet uses the “secure element” on your phone, it needs to go through a separate approval process of theirs, one that Google apparently knows about already.

Nokia Gets Serious About Vehicle Navigation with Drive (GigaOm)
Nokia’s latest version of its Drive software aims to emulate a full-feature embedded vehicle navigation systems, which leads me to wonder if Nokia has plans to get into the connected car market with a bring-your-own-maps strategy.

Mobile Devices Will Outnumber PCs Very Soon (Internet2Go)
If you’re inclined to believe financial analysts then mobile device ownership (smartphones + tablets) will trump PC ownership on a global basis some time next year. These are radical changes in the marketplace that are still slow to sink in with publishers and advertisers unfortunatley.

Livestar Adds New Features, But Its Best Feature Was There at the Beginning: Utility (PandoDaily)
Sarah Lacy: There is only one reason I started using OpenTable’s mobile app to find a restaurant near me instead of Yelp: Because with OpenTable I can see availability now and make an instant reservation in about a minute. Should I find what I want, I can actually act on it. This is where any mobile discovery app needs to go, and Livestar has nailed this element.

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