Street Fight Daily: Yahoo Buys Flurry, Urban Compass Raises $40M

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

YahooYahoo Acquires Flurry to Bolster Mobile Offerings (New York Times)
Yahoo announced Monday that it had agreed to acquire Flurry, a mobile ad and analytics company. Flurry’s analytics are used by 170,000 developers globally, and the deal will give Yahoo important strategic insights into how various apps are used on the 1.4 billion mobile devices on which Flurry runs.

How SMBs Can Create Comprehensive Local Marketing Strategies (Street Fight)
When it comes to creating marketing strategies that include two or more hyperlocal solutions, many local merchants don’t even know where to begin. Here are five strategies that SMBs should consider.

Urban Compass Raises Money at $360 Million Valuation (Bloomberg)
Urban Compass, the New York marketplace for renting and buying apartments, will expand to more U.S. cities after raising $40 million from investors. Financing from Advance Publications Inc., Marc Benioff and other investors more than doubles the startup’s valuation to more than $360 million, 10 months after its last funding round, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Airbnb Drops Homejoy From Cleaning Trial, Handybook Remains On In Three Test Markets (TechCrunch)
Earlier this year, Airbnb began testing a cleaning service for hosts that would be offered at a slight discount to traditional maid services they’d book themselves. Last week, however, it notified hosts that one of the two startups it had partnered with for the trial would no longer be available for booking.

Google Is Testing An Enhanced “Explore Nearby” Feature In Google Maps (AndroidPolice)
We’ve been able to get a few confirmations of a new Explore Nearby tool in Maps that offers much more fine-grained control of location-based suggestions. The updated Explore Nearby gets its own button on the bottom right of the map screen. You can still pick from various categories, but it’s split up into more focused groups and includes points of interest now.

Mobile-Ad Spending Leaps, but Trails User Growth (Wall Street Journal)
After less than a decade of existence, mobile devices this year will draw more money from advertisers than the centuries-old newspaper industry or the nearly century-old radio sector. Research firm eMarketer estimates that spending on mobile advertising, which includes both smartphones and tablets, will soar 83% to nearly $18 billion in 2014. (Subscription required)

M&A Not Just for TV: CBS Outdoor to Buy Van Wagner Billboards for $690 Million (AdAge)
CBS Outdoor Americas, the billboard company spun off from broadcaster CBS Corp., has agreed to acquire some advertising assets from Van Wagner Communications for $690 million in cash, the company said today. CBS Outdoor is buying about 1,100 large billboard displays in 11 U.S. markets, according to a statement.

How Smartphones Opened Up a Wonderful New Frontier for Art (Wired)
Bill Waslik: The smartphone, unlike the sheaf of paper, the marble block, the concert hall, the television, the PC, or any other previous medium for creativity, possesses an intrinsic awareness of where it is. So in the mobile era, as we consume more creativity on our phones, we have the potential to add a whole new layer to art.

You are Being Tracked in the Real World, So What Should We Do About It? (GigaOm)
We’re pretty accepting that every digital click we make and our phone’s location is constantly available. But as we both track more aspects of our lives and apply more sophisticated algorithms to that data it’s becoming possible to track people with pinpoint accuracy. Today we talk to the CEO of Truste about IoT and privacy.

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