Street Fight Daily: Groupon Acquires MashLogic, EveryBlock Could Be Sold
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.
Groupon Acqui-Hires MashLogic, Will Shutter Britely Plugin This weekend (PandoDaily)
The daily deals giant has apparently acqui-hired MashLogic, a five-year-old Palo Alto startup that makes the Britely contextual browser plugin. The browser plugin fad didn’t pan out too well for most involved, but the MashLogic team certainly gained relevant experience that Groupon is hoping they can put to use in the local commerce vertical.
What Do Google’s Enhanced Campaigns Mean for SMBs? (Street Fight)
Michael Boland: To wildly mixed reactions, Google last week announced a major redesign to its pervasive AdWords SEM platform. Known as Enhanced Campaigns, the redesign will force advertisers to run a single, converged — though conditionally governed — campaign across desktop, mobile, and tablet devices.
EveryBlock Could Still Be Sold, Says Schiller, After Abrupt Closing of Hyperlocal Pioneer (Poynter)
NBC News Chief Digital Officer Vivian Schiller told me Monday that the network is continuing to talk with potential buyers who had been in touch before the shutdown, and that more have come forward since last week. EveryBlock co-founder Adrian Holovaty said he knew of at least one potential buyer who expressed an interest and was in touch with NBC but was not invited to make an offer.
After Acquiring 15 Groupon Clones, CrowdSavings Finds a Buyer for Itself (AllThingsD)
Two daily deal companies that are far off the radar are joining forces with Half Off Depot, agreeing to acquire CrowdSavings for $6.4 million in cash and stock. The two companies represent a total of 19 acquisitions combined, representing a significant percentage of the overall number of deals that have taken place in the U.S. Second is that this deal was able to get done at all, given the current state of the industry.
5 Business Intelligence Platforms for Hyperlocals (Street Fight)
One of the fastest ways for hyperlocal marketers and sales teams to improve their success rates when pitching to SMBs is by identifying businesses most likely to be receptive to their offerings. A number of recently introduced business intelligence platforms can make that process a little bit easier and help marketers leverage online data to pinpoint businesses that are new and thriving.
Foursquare Continues Recommendation Engine Transformation with Venue Pages Shareable Outside Service (The Next Web)
Foursquare continues its march towards turning its enormous pile of check-in and location data into a slick recommendation service today with the announcement of sharable media-rich venue pages. The new pages will allow you to share a link to a venue out to friends who don’t have Foursquare, delivering a map, images, specials, tips, basic location info and more.
Hurdles, Rewards for Neighborhood Blogs (SF Gate)
Big media companies trying to cash in on hyper-local news – information that’s sometimes specific down to a couple of intersections in a big city – have not found the endeavor very profitable. But, despite navigating the same economic concerns, myriad hyper-local blogs run by citizen journalists are thriving in San Francisco – though mostly as labors of love, where the bottom line is not the primary concern.
Backed by $3 million, Nomi Seeks to Bridge Online and Offline Retail with Omni-Channel Platform (PandoDaily)
The company says it is the first tech startup to address “omni-channel” marketing, which is a new buzzword that basically means “online plus offline.” Omni-channel marketing seeks to tear down the silos between the two, integrating data from inventory, point of sale systems, marketing, and customer service departments together.
Facebook is Testing ‘Buy Tickets’ Links for Events, But Will It Get into the Ticketing Business? (The Next Web)
Facebook appears to be testing “Buy Tickets” buttons and links for event pages. The “Buy Tickets” link functionality is available for users in The Netherlands as well, and ticketing integration is already quite deep for some users.
The Bean Leverages Mobile Payments to Drive Repeat Visits (Mobile Commerce Daily)
Coffee house chain The Bean is offering mobile payments and special discounts via the LevelUp application to help drive loyalty and sales. The Bean’s three New York City locations participated in a pilot program integrating LevelUp with the ShopKeep mobile POS system.
Tagwhat Expands to Aggregate Offers by Location (Street Fight)
Tagwhat, the maker of an app that focuses on location-based content (from articles to video and audio about a given place), recently announced its entry into the business end of location services with new features that help users find offers from nearby merchants. The service now will pull time- and place-sensitive deals directly from Facebook (and other social networks), displaying them next to to the place-related content already provided users.
Yardsellr, The “eBay For Facebook,” Becomes The Latest Casualty In Social & Local Commerce (TechCrunch)
One of the many startups playing in the social/local commerce space was Yardsellr, a startup created by former eBay executives, which aspired to become the “eBay for Facebook” — without the auctions. Fast forward a year and a half and things haven’t been going as well as the founders had imagined. Last week, Yardsellr announced that it would be shutting down operations in the next 60 days.
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