Street Fight Daily: Facebook’s ‘Audience Network,’ Qualcomm Spins Off Beacon Business
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology
With Ad Network, Facebook Targets Rest of Mobile World (AdAge)
Facebook has formally launched its in-app mobile ad network, which will use the full suite of targeting options available within the social network itself. That means that marketers can target Facebook users within other mobile apps based on their interests as well as via the more sophisticated targeting options Facebook offers.
What Roadside Assistance Can Tell Us About the Future of Local Search (Street Fight)
Urgently has built an application that allows drivers to request, and pay for, a nearby tow truck or automotive technician, and then track the provider as they come to their destination. The service is one of handful new companies, which are working to apply the on-demand model developed by the taxi hailing company Uber to a range of traditionally offline, and often backwater industries.
Qualcomm Spins Off its Gimbal Bluetooth Beacon Biz Into a Separate Company (GigaOm)
Qualcomm has spun off Gimbal, its location-based services system compatible with Apple’s iBeacon, into a standalone company, offering retailers, entertainment venues, and businesses proximity-sensing and geofencing. The independent Gimbal will push what Qualcomm described as “the digital sixth sense,” feeding personalized information to users iOS and Android devices based on where they are in stores or stadium.
‘Baltimore Fishbowl’: One Story Behind ‘Optimistic’ New Revenue Numbers (Street Fight)
Tom Grubisich: A majority of independent community news sites are doing fine building revenue, according to Michele McLellan, author of Michele’s List, which tracks about 200 entrepreneurial community news sites around the country. To get at the “why” behind the numbers, I went to the founder of one of the best performing sites in the survey, three-year-old Baltimore Fishbowl.
Yext Acquires Software Consulting Firm Citrrus To Build Its Professional Services Team (TechCrunch)
Yext is announcing its first acquisition — software consulting and development company Citrrus. CEO Howard Lerman said that because Pages involves pulling data from a variety of systems, getting the product to work for enterprise customers can require more customization.
Yelp’s Revenue Surges as Mobile Advertising Grows (Reuters)
Yelp reported a better-than-expected 66 percent jump in quarterly revenue due to higher revenue from local advertising on mobile devices. The San Francisco-based company, whose rivals include internet search engines of Google and Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing, said revenue rose to $76.4 million from $46.1 million.
Payment Innovation Is Not Enough For Retail (TechCrunch)
Dax Dasilva: Once a key differentiator, mobile payments are fast becoming a commodity and are widely used by retailers. Bu to differentiate, merchants need to focus on innovating everything else that happens long before we reach the register, such as inventory management, a traditionally unsexy but mission-critical element of all store operations.
This App Could Beat Groupon and Yelp at the Going-Out Game (Atlantic Cities)
In what could be the next phase of willing your social life to the Internet, a new company may have found a way to fill in those gaps. It’s called Sosh — another San Francisco-based start-up run by twentysomethings who want to “change something about the world.”
Get Street Fight Daily in your inbox! Subscribe to our newsletter.
