Street Fight Daily: Foursquare’s Big Update, Pandora Hits 200M Users
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.
Foursquare’s Upcoming iOS Release Is A Pivotal Moment For The Company, As In It’s ‘Now Or Never’ (AllThingsD)
Continuing its push into the location discovery and recommendation space, Foursquare updated its iOS mobile app on Wednesday morning, moving the service’s search capabilities to the front and center of the phone. Over the past year, the company has slowly moved away from its heavy emphasis on badges, mayorships and “gamification”, instead moving towards a mobile discovery service somewhat akin to the space Yelp currently inhabits.
The AR of the Future Is About ‘Helping People Make Decisions’ (Street Fight)
Augmented reality is still a fairly new technology, but in the coming years it could have huge implications for how we see and browse through the world around us. Street Fight recently spoke with Jules White, co-founder and chief scientist of PAR Works, about how AR can be used to aid in the consumer’s decision-making process.
Doubling Its U.S. Member Base in 2 Years, Pandora Hits 200M Registered Users (VentureBeat)
Pandora has crossed the 200-million-registered-user mark, a major milestone for the company coming just a month after CEO Joe Kennedy resigned. The streaming radio service hit 100 million registered users back in July 2011, meaning that it doubled its user base in a little less than two years.
Case Study: Consistency Is Key to Local Marketing for N.C. Restaurant (Street Fight)
While e-newsletters have been a useful tool for promoting loyalty among current customers, Gwen Holtsclaw says Facebook has been far more useful for generating attention in her local area. Even the ScrubOaks Restaurant website has become a “secondary resource” for customer acquisition. “[Customers] hear about us or they see a Facebook post, and if they’re curious they’ll go to the website to see what the full menu is.”
Big Money For Little Sites: Mobile Website Maker DudaMobile Raises Another Round, Extends Series B By $10.3 Million (TechCrunch)
Mobile website maker DudaMobile has just raised another round, following a busy 2012 which saw the service grow to 4 million mobile sites, the introduction of new partnerships, and a major overhaul of its site builder product. The funding, an extension to its $6 million Series B from last spring, brings in $10.3 million in new funding, led by previous investors Israeli-based Pitango Venture Capital and Oren’s Capital.
Can You Find Me Now? How Carriers Sell Your Location and Get Away With It (Verge)
Some carrier data also includes your location, determined by the nearest cell tower whenever your phone checks in with the network, providing roughly a hundred data points each day. It’s the same data law enforcement uses if they’ve got a warrant out — but it belongs to the carriers, and as long as your “personal” data is stripped out, they’re allowed to sell the anonymized data to whoever they want.
With Its Latest iOS Update, eBay’s RedLaser Adds More Local Deals, Store Profile Pages And More (TechCrunch)
Last fall, eBay updated its barcode-scanning app, RedLaser, to be more of a companion to the in-store shopping experience. Part of that transition was adding deals from RetailMeNot, as well as geofencing and other features for shoppers. With a new update issued today for the iOS, eBay is partnering with the stores themselves to source local deals and additional information.
Google Sold Frommer’s Travel — But Kept All the Social Media Data (PaidContent)
People wondered why Google sold Frommer’s Travel barely nine months after acquiring it in the first place. The answer is that it’s keeping a huge number social media followers from sites like Facebook.
Circl is Not Groupon, But It Can Help Local Merchants Drive Foot Traffic Through Online Promotions (PandoDaily)
Circl, which calls itself an intelligent promotions platform for local businesses, focuses on optimizing marketing decision making by measuring the effectiveness of various promotions and distribution channels at bringing a customer into offline stores. The platform has been in private beta for several months now with several hundred merchant testers, ranging from local businesses to large national retailers, according to the company.
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