Street Fight Daily: Uber’s Regulator Fight Continues, Google’s New Take On Self-Service

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

Why Is Uber Fighting a Regulatory Battle That It Already Won? (AllThingsD)
Remember when tech startups like Lyft, Sidecar and Uber fought California regulators and won, getting designated as a new class of transportation that was deemed legal? Turns out Uber didn’t like that. It filed today a petition for rehearing with the California Public Utilities Commission, saying the transportation regulator shouldn’t have jurisdiction over technology companies.

LivingSocial CEO: Our Business Isn’t ‘Daily Deals,’ It’s Ad Dollars (Street Fight)
“We realized with the asset base that we had that we should be able to do other things and leverage it into new areas,” said Tim O’Shaughnessy at Street Fight Summit on Thursday in New York. “How do we take the hundreds of thousands of merchants that we work with, the tens of millions of customers that we have, this big salesforce, and a technology team and figure out new ways to get customers through the doors of merchants.”

Google Updates Its Self-Service Offers Tool (TheNextWeb)
Google today announced an update to its Google Offers self-service tool for all US businesses that speeds up creation and adds Google Maps support, which will roll out “within the next week.” Google claims the new offer creation tool lets businesses create their offer “in minutes” and then showcase it to local customers across various Google properties.

In Race To Local, Brands Push Ahead Cautiously (Street Fight)
There’s been a quiet emigration in the local technology world away from the mom-and-mom market, with startups and existing players alike moving upstream to bigger brands with more. During a panel at Street Fight Summit in New York Thursday, executives from Groupon, YP, and the well-funded upstart Brand Networks sat down with AdAge’s Michael Learmonth to talk about the growing interest in local among brands, and the limitations that are holding them back.

Square’s Credit Card Payments Are Great, But Here’s What The Company Actually Does Best (Business Insider)
“Everyone thinks Square’s greatest accomplishment was turning a smartphone into a point-of-sale device,” said author and entrepreneur Brett King during an event Thursday. “That’s great and all, but the real achievement is in the way that Square’s completely reinvented merchant onboarding.”

Who’s The Future Of Local Search? The Consumer (Street Fight)
As more and more consumers look to buy, as well as find and discover local businesses, online, the industry has evolved. During a panel at Street Fight Summit in New York Thursday, panelists from Yelp, Bing, and Yext gathered to discuss the evolving role of commerce in the local search industries, and strategies for the industry to adapt.

Foursquare Founder Dennis Crowley on Getting Married, Growing a Business and Foursquare’s North Star (New York Observer)
We met with Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley in the sunny and cheerily decorated Foursquare offices in SoHo in September. As we sat around a table in a freshly built conference room (Crowley told us it had been finished only days before the interview), we asked him about the moment he knew that Foursquare was going to work.

What Brands Are Doing Wrong On Mobile (Street Fight)
As consumers spend more time using mobile devices than browsing the web and even watching television, a mobile strategy isn’t an opportunity; it’s a matter of survival, says Urban Airship chief marketing officer Brent Hieggelke. During a keynote at Street Fight Summit in New York Thursday, Hieggelke argued that brands need to change the way they approach mobile, shifting from looking at the platform as yet another marketing channel to treating it as a central tool in creating a better consumer experience.

34% Of Local SEOs Make Less Than $30,000/Year. Why? (SearchEngineLand)
As the local search industry evolves and becomes more complex, the role of local search consultants and agencies becomes more critical. Complexity is increasing across most areas of our fast-growing industry, which makes “local search” all the more confusing for local business owners.Why, then, with this increase in demand, are so many earning less than $30,000/year and having to sell their services harder than ever before, according to our findings?

Openings and New Hires at Tribune, Trulia, Moasis, Twitter (Street Fight)
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. In this week’s edition, new hires and jobs at Groupon, VendAsta, MOGL, Leaf, and more.

For Groupon, Resurgence Is In The Numbers (Street Fight)
Even as investors interest in daily deals company has waned, the game is not over for Groupon, and others in the deals space. After a calamitous 2012 , the company has bounced backed in 2013 thanks, in part, to a rise in the number of merchants offering longer-running, recurring campaigns instead of one-off deals, according to Jim Moran, co-founder at Yipit, who gave the afternoon keynote at Street Fight Summit in New York on Thursday.

New Mercedes-Benz C-class Shots Show Google Maps (CNet)
One of Mercedes-Benz’s photos shows an apps screen, with an icon for Google Maps sitting next to a Facebook icon, the latter app currently integrated into models such as the S550. Buttressing the idea that Mercedes-Benz has integrated Google Maps, but also confusing the issue somewhat, is another photo showing the new model’s LCD with an image that looks like it was taken from Google Earth.

More Funding For Flower Startups: Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital Back BloomNation (GigaOm)
On Thursday, BloomNation, a Los Angeles-based company that enables local florists to reach consumers through an online marketplace, said it raised $1.65 million from a group of top investors. The seed round included Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital, Chicago Ventures, CrunchFund and MuckerLab. The startup, which said its marketplace includes about 2,000 florists in nearly 3,000 cities across the country, describes itself as an “Etsy-type” site for flowers.

Pricing Engine Data Shows Lower Costs For Businesses That Advertise On Bing (TechCrunch)
Pricing Engine, a company that guides small businesses through the process of buying online ads, is presenting its first report today at the Street Fight Summit New York on data from its customers. Even though small businesses are focusing most of their advertising on Google AdWords, there may be a bit of an untapped opportunity in Bing. AdWords advertisers through Pricing Engine saw an average clickthrough rate of 2.4 percent (compared to 2.3 percent on Bing), but the price for those clicks was lower on Bing, which saw a cost-per-click of $1.10 (versus $2.40 on AdWords).

LBMA Podcast: Zumigo, Mobiquity, and the Explosion of Wearables (Street Fight)
On the show: Zumigo uses location to combat payment fraud from the phone; Mobiquity Networks brings proximity marketing to broadway; Shazam breaks into bricks and mortar; Trafi helps map the unmapped; Google gets deeper into NSA territory; and Asda brings 3D printing to the grocery store

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