Street Fight Daily: PayPal Expands In-Store, Hyperlocal Media Defended
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.
PayPal Adds New Retailers For In-Store Payments Product; Tests Order-Ahead Pickup At Jamba Juice (TechCrunch)
PayPal is announcing today that seven new national retailers are using its in-store payments technology. The payments company is also debuting a new ordering feature for Jamba Juice, which allows users to pre-pay via PayPal and order their smoothies or other food items ahead.
5 Platforms Retailers Can Use for Same-Day Delivery (Street Fight)
Brick-and-mortar retailers that offer same-day delivery options give customers the best of both worlds — letting them support local businesses, without having to get off the couch to do so. Here are five start-ups that local businesses can use for expedited delivery.
Hyperlocal is Deserving of Its Hype (The Guardian)
Dave Harte: During a sample period of 11 days in May 2012 there were a total of 3,819 news stories produced from 313 sites [in the UK]. During weekday daytimes they were collectively responsible for producing a news story once every two minutes.
Scoutmob Finds Surprise Success with Etsy Competitor Shoppe (PandoDaily)
Co-founder and head of product Michael Tavani said that the company’s new ecommerce product, Shoppe, has been performing wildly above expectations. Launched six months ago, Shoppe is like a cross between Etsy and Fab. It’s a marketplace for local artisans but it’s curated by Scoutmob, so only a select group of micro-retailers are featured.
TaskRabbit Hires Google’s Brown-Philpot in a Renewed Management Expansion (AllThingsD)
TaskRabbit, the San Francisco-based marketplace for personal projects and services, has hired longtime Google exec Stacy Brown-Philpot as COO. As both its funding and also competition have increased, the move is another major effort by TaskRabbit to up its management game.
Travelocity Takes A Page From Airbnb’s Book And Launches Concierge Service (TechCrunch)
Sabre-owned Travelocity has launched a new concierge service, offering restaurant reservations, driving directions, tickets to local events and more. The move follows Airbnb launching a concierge service in September 2011, which it then enhanced with additional local information for all comers, through its Neighborhoods offering, which debuted in November 2012 and is still being rolled out worldwide.
AOL Patch-Work Approach Has Some Local Editors Stretched to the Limit (FishbowlLA)
Lately, when a site loses a local editor, one of the company’s responses has been to upside-down replace the departing journalist. In lieu of a new hire, Patch is tasking a number of adjacent LE’s with the duty of doubling their coverage area.
10 Simple Things SMB Websites Need To Fix Before SEO (Search Engine Land)
While SEO is an important channel, the ROI that can come from improving customer conversion rates on your website can’t be beat — assuming you actually have people coming to your website in the first place. Most SMB websites start from such a low bar that simple upgrades can have a dramatic impact on conversion with considerably less risk than competitive marketing programs like SEO and SEM.
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