Street Fight Daily: Intuit’s New Direction, Fousquare’s New Business App
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.
Intuit’s New Payments Directions In NFC, Passbook And Facebook Revealed In 20+ New Products (TechCrunch)
Intuit is revealing more about how it plans to expand its services into new areas to complement its bread-and-butter business of payrolls and accounting software, with over 20 new products. They include those in payments technologies using NFC and Apple’s Passbook, consumer-focused big data apps, and new products for its Mint financial-management range.
The Local Conundrum: Rich Content or Accurate Information? (Street Fight)
Damian Rollison: Google may have thought that situating local within Google+ would somehow obviate the need to fix it, but the presence of engaging content does nothing to modify the basic requirement that information services provide useful information. Perversely, information services spend too much time pretending they are content services but offer none of the openness of those services where it’s really needed.
Foursquare’s New App Is Open for Business (AllThingsD)
Foursquare launched a new app on Tuesday morning, the company’s second standalone application, and the first aimed squarely at the business side of the market. The app is an extension of Foursquare’s additions to its merchant tools updates from mid-2012, which allowed business owners to better control special offers to nearby customers using a more robust desktop dashboard.
Edo Bucks Trend, Expands Into Local (Street Fight)
As firms like Group Commerce pull out of the local market, others like Edo are moving in the opposite direction.The company, which syndicates card-linked offers to financial institutions like Ally Bank and Fifth Third, has hooked up with local reseller 2Go Media to open its network to local merchants through a simplified version of its enterprise platform.
Belly Bites is Free Sampling for Local Merchants Done Right (PandoDaily)
Chicago-based Belly announced the national launch of Belly Bites, a digital free sample program. Small and medium-sized merchants offer customers a promotional item, like a free latte or haircut, in hopes of luring them in and getting them hooked as a regular customer.
With Abraham Out, What’s Next for eBay Local? (Street Fight)
Earlier this week eBay announced that it had parted ways with Jack Abraham, the founder of Milo (which eBay acquired two years ago) and a centerpiece of the web giant’s blistering push into the local space. Abraham’s departure leaves a vacancy at one of the more important positions in the hyperlocal ecosystem and presents questions about the evolving structure of eBay’s off-line commerce efforts.
Poor Execution: A Tale of Two Mobile Display Ads (Screenwerk)
Greg Sterling: One major issue for mobile local advertising is poor ad creative and another is what I called “lazy location.” That’s where national ads throw in a dealer or store locator on a landing page almost as an afterthought.
More Consumers Order Food Online Using a Smartphone or Tablet (ClickZ)
Nearly 70 percent of consumers said they order food online using a mobile device, according to a new study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Viggle. The study found that users use their mobile device to find out restaurant locations, check out menus, and see other users’ reviews.
Why OpenTable’s Foodspotting Buy Is Good for Restaurants (Street Fight)
Foodspotting, a provider of a food-sharing and recommendations app, announced yesterday that it would be acquired by reservations company OpenTable for $10 million. While the two services seem quite different (one is for reservations and the other is a social network organized around food) the acquisition could mean good things for both companies as well as local restaurants.
The Cloudy Future of Facial Recognition In Stores (ReadWrite)
Some retailers are using surveillance cameras to track the ebb and flow of the number of shoppers, the path they take through the store and the products they touch can provide valuable information for boosting sales. While customers may find this level of scrutiny creepy, retailers see it as survival in a low-margin, fiercely competitive business.
Square Is Paying For Its Ex-COO’s Legal Defense In Sexual Harassment Claim (Business Insider)
Square, the online-payments startup, is paying the legal expenses of Keith Rabois, the well-known Internet executive who resigned as its chief operating officer last Thursday after an employee claimed Rabois had harassed him.
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