Street Fight Daily: Google Buys Waze, UBL Snaps Up Local Incite

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

Why Google Wanted Waze: The Local Ad Market Is Going Mobile (AdAge)
After acquisition talks between Facebook and social driving app Waze broke down last month, Google has snapped up the Israeli startup that has gained popularity by having people crowdsource traffic conditions as they use the app to navigate. Earlier this year the search giant revamped how marketers purchase search ads to base their rates not so much on what device someone is on when they encounter an ad but on where they are and how valuable that is to the marketer.

UBL Acquires Local Incite – Adds Chicago Presence (UBL)
Universal Business Listing, a service of UBL Interactive, Inc., today announced the acquisition of the assets of Local Incite, the Chicago-based Local Search marketing group. Local Incite was a service of Incite Interactive Media, Inc, and specialized in services that help multi-location companies and franchises improve their branch office or store presence in search engines, local directories, mapping and social-mobile discovery.

Why Mobile Ads Are ‘A Little Scary’ (And Potentially So Valuable) (Street Fight)
Terry Heaton: Mobile isn’t a mass marketing vehicle; it’s my one-to-one, highly intimate connection with the Web. It’s a personal device, and its connection to me is private (or not), powerful, and controllable entirely by me. It is, in fact, a portable, electronic version of me, and I will not permit interruptions in the name of commerce for long.

HP and Google Team Up to Offer Small Businesses “IT in a Box” (AllThingsD)
Tech giants Hewlett-Packard and Google just announced a plan in which they will join forces under the banner of Google Apps. HP has become a Google Apps reseller and will package management tools with its PCs, printers and other IT gear. One extra thing that HP brings to the table is some management software that will simplify setup.

So, What Happens to Passbook in iOS 7? (GigaOm)
At WWDC 2012, Passbook was called a “key feature” of iOS 6. A year later, the Apple keynote went by without a single mention of the digital wallet app. Its conspicuous absence could mean Apple doesn’t consider it worth mentioning. Or, it could mean Apple is waiting for a bigger rollout when it announces new hardware this fall.

The Mobile Shopping Life Cycle (Harvard Business Review)
One of the most time-honored marketing concepts, that notion that a customer takes a predictable journey toward a sales transaction has long provided the framework for marketers to strategize how to communicate with customers and exert influence. Now, because of smartphones and tablets, marketers need to fundamentally rethink things. Shopping is becoming an iterative rather than a serial process. Consumers no longer go shopping, they always are shopping.

Despite Recent Financing, Foursquare Confronts Growing Challenges (MarketingLand)
Greg Sterling: Months ago, I had thought that Foursquare would be Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s big, splashy acquisition. While Yahoo is perhaps the most logical acquirer, there are undoubtedly a number of others that would scoop up the company at the right price. And, a near-term acquisition is probably the most likely scenario for the company.

The CTO Of AOL’s Patch Just Quit (Business Insider)
The entire engineering team for AOL’s local news network of sites, Patch, was brought into a room and told that their leader, CTO Rob Platzer, is leaving the company. He joined Patch three years ago when AOL bought his prior employer, Outside.in.

Politix, Topix’s Politics-focused Site, Adds PopVox and News Site TheBlaze as Content Partners (TheNextWeb)
Topix, a local forum site, is adding two new partnerships today to its political news and discussion site Politix. The move will see the company deliver more rounded coverage to help users not only share their thoughts, but get a more complete picture of political issues that affect the world today.

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