Street Fight Daily: Apple Acquires Locationary, Yelp Snaps Up Reservations Service
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology
Apple Acquires Local Data Outfit Locationary (AllThingsD)
Apple has acquired the Toronto-based Locationary, a small Canadian startup, backed by Extreme Venture Partners and Plazacorp Ventures. Locationary uses crowdsourcing and a federated data exchange platform called Saturn to collect, merge and continuously verify a massive database of information on local businesses around the world, solving one of location’s biggest problems: out-of-date information.
With Digital Video, Media Companies Could Disrupt Local TV (Street Fight)
Matt Sokoloff: Here’s what I think will happen. The local newspapers that are smart are already getting serious about creating video content. Some of them are beginning to figure out how to get that content to consumers via set-top boxes, and they will be the first to experiment with partnering with companies like Aereo instead of fighting them in court.
Yelp To Acquire Restaurant Reservation Service SeatMe To Take On OpenTable (Verge)
Yelp announced on Thursday that it’ll be purchasing SeatMe, a service that allows restaurants to manage their waitlist and provide online reservations, for about $12.7 million. The acquisition is a clear move toward taking on OpenTable, which has already become the dominant tool for placing reservations online.
Openings & New Hires at Yellowbot, LiveIntent, Village Voice, and Groupon (Street Fight)
Kelly Benish: Every two weeks, Search Influence’s Kelly Benish — who knows practically everyone in hyperlocal — covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. Moves this edition include new execs at Punchey and Tribune, and job openings at Yelp, The Weather Channel, Google, and more.
LivingSocial Is All Kinds of Screwed Up (Verge)
Sam Biddle: Deals sites stopped being fun some time ago, and now the companies that staked their entire existence on local coupons are feeling the burn. And then there’s LivingSocial, which is feeling the burn because it’s setting its own shirt on fire. Everything I’ve gathered from employees, current and former, points in one very clear, very bad direction: the company is screwed, and it’s just a matter of when.
Privacy Hawks in Tow, Euclid Pushes Ahead With Offline Retail Analytics (Street Fight)
Amid congressional queries and rumbles in the press over privacy concerns, Euclid is pushing ahead with its effort to bring Google Analytics to the physical world. The service, which uses wi-fi signals to provide brick-and-mortar retailers with store analytics, has released a major update, adding new metrics, industry benchmarks, and a substantial redesign to its dashboard.
Uber Continues Disruption of Ice Cream Vending (BetaBeat)
Uber announced today that its on-demand ice cream truck will return this Friday, July 19 in the U.S. and abroad. In 33 cities, residents will be able to user the Uber app to summon an ice cream truck. Just look for the “Ice Cream” icon within the app and see if a truck is nearby.
Google Maps Takes You Inside New York City Restaurants (Mashable)
New York City is home to a endless number of restaurants — more than 25,000. Now, Google Maps makes it easier to get a feel for some of the city’s most popular eateries by taking you inside with 360-degree views and interactive photos. Google announced on Thursday it is adding indoor imagery to 167 of the 294 restaurants participating in New York Restaurant Week, which starts on July 22 and runs through Aug. 16.
CIA Invests In Geodata Expert OpenGeo (GigaOm)
On Thursday, geospatial data expert OpenGeo announced a investment from In-Q-Tel, an arm of the U.S. intelligence community, originally spun out of the CIA, that makes strategic investments in technologies that could benefit the community’s mission. Its open-source software lets users store, analyze and create maps from the data they collect about locations.
Objective Logistics Raises $5.3 million Series A To Gamify Restaurants (PandoDaily)
The Cambridge, MA-based company uses game dynamics to incent wait staff to perform better and in the process add to a restaurant’s bottom line. MUSE is Objective Logistics’ software platform, which relies on game mechanics to create a competitive environment, ranking wait staff on a leader board and rewarding them with their choice of shifts and other prizes.
LBMA Podcast: Apple Making Social Maps, YuMe’s Targeted Video Ads(Street Fight)
In this week’s episode, Apple is creating a Waze of their own; France rocks biometric payments and IBM’s Smarter Cities billboards; and tracking moods through facial expressions to sell cosmetics. SolveMedia and Unilever brand the captcha. Plus special guest Krina Patel of Ingenious Med.
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