Street Fight Daily: Amazon’s New Wallet, Linkedin Buys Bizo
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology
Passbook Redux: Amazon Copies Apple’s Underwhelming Digital Wallet (Pando)
Amazon has released a beta version of a wallet application meant to give Android users an easy way to manage their gift cards, loyalty cards, and payment information. The unimaginatively-named Amazon Wallet will be pre-installed on the company’s Fire Phone when it’s released later this week, and can also be installed on other Android smartphones, too.
Conference Notebook: Navigating a Future For Indoor Mapping (Street Fight)
Steven Jacobs: In a world overflowing with data, it’s ironic that the last bastion of opacity — the place about which businesses know the least — is also the place where we spend the majority of our money: the physical store. But that’s set to change.
LinkedIn Makes Another Deal, Buying Bizo (New York Times)
LinkedIn will buy Bizo, a B2B display ad platform, for $175 million in cash and stock, the companies said Tuesday. Founded in 2008 by a team that is still with the company, Bizo has developed its own technology that lets marketers identify new prospects and target them with relevant content.
Study: The Problem With Mobile Payments Isn’t Awareness — It’s Utility (Street Fight)
A new study from Thrive Analytics shows that the sluggish growth of mobile wallet initiatives is largely a product — not a marketing — problem. Among the 32% of respondents who used a wallet app, usage was, for the most part, intermittent.
For Its First Google Glass Effort, EBay Adapts Its RedLaser Product Finder App (TechCrunch)
Back in March 2013, eBay said it would start to work on applications for Google Glass . Now over a year later, the e-commerce giant is rolling out its first effort: a Glass-optimized version of its RedLaser barcode scanning app, where people can search for products online and locally, activated using voice and image recognition.
Hillshire Brands Sees 20% Jump in Purchase Intent With Beacons (AdWeek)
Hillshire Brands are announcing an interesting case study today about how beacons increased purchase intent and sales for American Craft link sausages. While marketers have hyped beacons for a while now, Hillshire’s campaign is one of the first proof points that back up the use of the in-store technology.
LinkedIn Explores Location Updates That Connect You With People Nearby (VentureBeat)
LinkedIn is exploring location alerts reminiscent of Foursquare and Sonar, according to the company. These experiments follow a series of moves from LinkedIn designed to boost engagement, including the acquisition of Newsle, the launch of redesigned Web profiles, and the debut of LinkedIn’s new Connected app, which prods you to stay in touch with your network.
Square’s Cash Advance Program Is Funding 10,000 Merchants (BusinessInsider)
Payments startup Square has been piloting a new program called Capital, which fronts small businesses a sum of money and lets them pay it back once they start making money. Square spokesperson Faryl Ury told Business Insider that 10,000 merchants have tapped into the program since it was first announced in May.
Quandoo Closes $25M Growth Financing Round To Take On OpenTable (TechCrunch)
OpenTable is the main real-time reservation platform for restaurants, but it’s an old incumbent and there is plenty of opportunity out there. New startup Quandoo wants to address this area and today it’s close its Series $25m growth financing round lead by Piton Capital and affiliates.
Hotel Guests Ditch Room Service for Food Delivery Apps (Skift)
Hotel guests increasingly prefer to order their eats from takeout restaurants rather than from room service, according to data from Chicago-based online food-ordering service GrubHub. The company found that takeout orders to hotels increased 125 percent in the past three years after analyzing orders delivered to 8,000 hotels across the country.
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