Street Fight Daily: Amazon Plans Grubhub Competitor, Google Moves to the Car

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

2011_3_11_amazonAmazon Is Quietly Launching a Local Takeout Service To Rival Seamless and DeliveryHero (TechCrunch)
Amazon has been tipped to launch a local services marketplace this year to rival the likes of Thumbtack, Angie’s List and Yelp. Now one part of that effort looks like it’s about to go live: the company is now rolling out a food takeout service, a direct competitor to GrubHub, Seamless and DeliveryHero.

Despite Many New Local News Sites, ‘Media Deserts’ Are a Stubborn Reality (Street Fight)
Tom Grubisich: More than 120 newspapers have shut down in the U.S. since 2008. Hundreds of digital community news sites have been launched in the meantime, but journalist and educator Dr. Michelle Ferrier from the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University says that millions of Americans have ended up in a “media desert.”

Google Moves to the Car with Android Auto (Recode)
Google made its long-anticipated move into the car, using its Google I/O developer conference to launch Android Auto software. The driver can use voice or the built-in steering wheel controls to access applications on the mobile device, getting directions from Google Maps or listening to a favorite playlist stored on Google Play.

Is the U.K. Moving Ahead of the U.S. in Location Targeting? (Street Fight)
Jeremy Ozen: Some advertisers in the U.K. are pulling off the sorts of campaigns that we only dream of here. It’s easy to chalk that up to the comparatively small size of the market, but that’s selling ourselves short. There’s no good reason that we can’t roll out the same location-based ad tech that has proven so successful in the U.K.

The Story Behind OpenTable’s Tangled Courtship of Priceline (Fortune)
Priceline kicked off the serious bidding a non-binding offer May 9. But that was just three weeks after OpenTable CEO Roberts emailed Priceline Group CEO Darren Huston to gauge whether Priceline “would be interested in exploring a potential acquisition,” according to a filing, abundant interest by other suitors preceded and followed it.

Uber: The Great Disruptor of Pizza Delivery? (Fortune)
Uber is positioning itself as an alternative to any kind of local transport — and that’s a far cry from just competing against taxis. So Uber defined this digital category of using technology to efficiently get price-competitive personal transportation anywhere, anytime.

LivingSocial, Readying July Push, Says It Has Cracked the Code to Personalized Deals (Washington Business Journal)
LivingSocial now believes it’s figured out deal personalization, and is getting ready to prove it on July 1. The D.C. based company is planning a broad rollout next month intended to add fun and relevance to their deals, while providing merchants with a new set of tools that will give them new control and flexibility in the offers they run.

iOS 8’s Planned Location Restrictions: What You Need To Know (AdExchanger)
Eli Portnoy: Permanent MAC addresses have long been the only way for brick-and-mortar establishments to know who is in their stores. Apple has consistently shown that it is privacy-aware, so this move away from MAC should not be surprising. But I’d like to clear up misconceptions I’ve seen circulating about this announcement.

EatStreet, Yelp Team up for Online Ordering (Wisconsin State Journal)
Madison-based EatStreet and Yelp have teamed up to bring online ordering to more of Yelp’s restaurants and their customers. Customers can now order food directly from many more restaurant pages on Yelp, courtesy of EatStreet’s integration into the Yelp platform.

Pat Sajak Taking on Groupon With Daily Deals Franchise (Entrepreneur)
Wheel of Fortune star Pat Sajak is expanding his Great American Deals franchise company nationally. Great American Deals, which Sajak describes as a hyperlocal Groupon-like business, currently has just under 20 locations operating in California.

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