Street Fight Daily: Stripe’s Big Round, Rabois Resigns From Yelp’s Board
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.
Stripe Bolsters its Mobile Payments Cred With $80M Funding Round (GigaOm)
The payments startup has become a hot item since PayPal/eBay’s $800 million acquisition of competitor Braintree. As e-commerce increasingly shifts to mobile payments and collaborative consumption, Stripe’s developer-friendly payments platform holds a key advantage.
How Patch’s New Owners Can Reverse Its Fortunes (Street Fight)
Tom Grubisich: Patch doesn’t have to wind up in the “bone yard.” I believe the hyperlocal network recently unloaded by Aol can, within five years, be a seriously profitable venture. It will happen if the company’s new owners, Hale Global, go all out for engagement-worthy community journalism that’s responsibly budgeted. And it will happen if they adopt a revenue strategy that’s responsive to fast-evolving trends in ad spending.
Keith Rabois Resigns From Yelp’s Board (Recode)
Keith Rabois, the former PayPal and Square executive turned venture capitalist, has resigned from the board of directors of Yelp, the company announced today. He is being being replaced by Mariam Naficy, founder and CEO of Minted.com, a venture-backed online stationery and card company that counts Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman among its investors.
Icahn Says He Is Prepared for eBay Proxy Fight (Wall Street Journal)
Carl Icahn says he is prepared for a proxy fight to win two seats on the board of eBay and push the company to split off its PayPal unit. In an interview Thursday night, Mr. Icahn said he expects eBay to resist the proposal, as eBay executives and directors have done.
Comcast Revives EveryBlock in Chicago (Poynter)
After an 11-and-a-half month absence, EveryBlock has returned to the city where it began — but only to that city, Chicago, for now. Comcast this morning relaunched the popular hyperlocal social site where neighbors share data and crowdsource news. NBC News, which is owned by Comcast, abruptly shuttered EveryBlock last February. It previously had operated in 19 markets.
OPA Presentation: Now What? (JXPaton)
John Paton: Digital First Media is closing in on $200 million in digital ad revenues – less than 20% of that revenue is from mobile, video, SEO and programmatic. But by 2015, those same categories will represent more than half of our digital ad revenue. Banner advertising will only be about 15%.
A Death in the Database (New Yorker)
Life-stage marketing is geared to all those happy families who are alike; it forgets about the others, all unhappy in their own way. The strategy works when events unfold according to plan, but reality, as most people learn sooner or later, has a way of defying predictions.
How Data Analysis Drives the Customer Journey (Wired)
Like the traffic engineers and transportation departments that navigate this process, enterprises face a similar challenge when mapping, building, and optimizing digital customer journeys. To create innovative and information-rich digital experiences that provide customers with a satisfying journey, a business must understand the stages and channels that consumers travel through to reach their destination.
MapQuest Transfers Local Listings Management To Yext (SearchEngineLand)
Last October, MapQuest started outsourcing local business listings management to Yext. The “claim your MapQuest listings” page is hosted by Yext (I believe) with a co-branded look and feel. MapQuest has notified business users that its local business center and basic local listings product would be formally shutting down.
LBMA Podcast: Nest Takes the Cash, WillCall Pays Your Tab (Street Fight)
On the show: Juice Mobile acquired Gauge Mobile; WillCall adds your bar tab at the club. Our mobile minute with Chuck Martin highlights the NFC-TV from NRF. And our special guest is Paul Madsen of Ping Identity, talking about the Internet of Things.
Get Street Fight Daily in your inbox! Subscribe to our newsletter.
