Street Fight Daily: Retailers Embrace Showrooming, Pinterest Pins Main Street
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.
Retailers Seek Partners in Social Networks (New York Times)
Just a few years ago, the retail industry was deeply shaken by a growing trend in store browsing — shoppers wandering around the aisles with their cellphones, surveying the merchandise while looking online for somewhere else to buy it for less. Ultimately, most major retailers decided that many customers would be on their phones regardless of what stores did — so they decided to get on their customers’ screens.
Will ‘Indie’ Hyperlocals Go for National Marketers’ Goodies? (Street Fight)
Tom Grubisich: Most publishers of independent hyperlocal news sites steer clear of national ads. They think messages from national brands can be a jarring presence on a page with neighborhood news or ads for the local yoga center and pizza parlor. They also don’t like the low rates that have often come with national ads. But fast-developing changes in national digital ad marketing have buyers dangling premium rates for high-value placements.
Pinterest Piques Interest On The High Street (Financial Times)
As consumers glide back and forth increasingly smoothly between the online and offline worlds, it is important for internet companies to be able to connect digital activity and physical locations. The logical next step for Pinterest would be to allow retailers to push offers or “most-pinned” items to tempt people into stores, in the manner of Foursquare and Groupon.
#SFSNYC VIDEO: The Next Billion-Dollar Exit in Hyperlocal (Street Fight)
With Google’s acquisition of Waze earlier this year, local tech is back in the limelight. During a panel at Street Fight Summit in New York last month, Matt Turck of First Mark Capital, Ben Siscovick of IA Ventures, and Jason Klein from OnGrid Ventures discussed where the best investing opportunities are these days in the local.
Surprise: Everyone Hates Working for the 22-Year-Old’s Mystery Startup (Gawker)
Sam Biddle: The more we learn about Clinkle—a mobile payments app so fantastic, so splendorous, that the startup hasn’t deemed our species worthy of any details—the duller it seems. Another way to pay with our phones—super. But what’s lackluster for us is miserable for them: according to a new post on Quora, working for the joint’s infamously young boss is hell.
Groupon Wavers With Core Issues In Question (MarketWatch)
Since the start of last week, Groupon is off by 13.5%, to trade at $9.26 a share Tuesday as investors seem to be selling off just as the company is implementing new strategies to pull in consumers ahead of the crucial end-of-the-year Christmas and holiday shopping season. Still, it’s going to take time for Groupon’s new investments and strategy to pay off, and investors have shown a tendency to jump or get back on board with the company at a moment’s notice.
Apple Maps is Beating Google Maps on iOS in Europe and the UK (Skift)
When the Guardian published the data earlier this month, some suggested that Apple’s Maps are worse in Europe than in the US, and that therefore use of Google Maps would be higher in Europe than in the US – or at least that the drop-off would have been less. But data supplied exclusively by ComScore to the Guardian suggests that none of those is the case – and that the fact of being the default app on the iPhone has meant that Apple Maps is far more used than Google’s offering on the iPhone.
Square Changes Mobile Payment Fees For Businesses (Washington Post)
Square, the start-up allowing businesses to process credit card payments by swiping them through a plastic iPhone attachment, is changing its fee structure. The company charges businesses 2.75 percent of each credit card swipe — 3.5 percent and 15 cents for each manually entered transaction. Last year, it began offering a monthly flat fee option of $275 a month for businesses processing charges of less than $250,000 a year.
Behold Leap Transit: The Uber For City Buses Is Nigh (PandoDaily)
Leap Transit, as envisioned by its founders, is a private alternative to public buses. You book, track, and pay for your bus via a smartphone app, enjoy leather seats and wifi on board, and avoid all the occasional discomfort that comes with travelling by public transport, such as crowded carriages, odiferous strangers, and Jack Dorsey.
LBMA Podcast: Placecodes, Pinterest, Shopkick and Verve Mobile (Street Fight)
On the show: Placecodes helps you find your Friendly’s ice cream; Macy’s deploys ShopBeacon from ShopKick; PlaceIQ announces PIQ and PreVisit; Pinterest adds Place Pins; Bombsquare opens your city to virtual war against real friends; Philips and Desso create light transmissive carpet.
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