Street Fight Daily: Zillow Buys Trulia for $3.5B, Yelp Adds Videos to Reviews
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology
Zillow to Buy Trulia for $3.5 Billion in All-Stock Deal (New York Times)
Zillow agreed on Monday to buy Trulia for about $3.5 billion in stock, creating a giant online repository of real estate listings and home values. Last month, Zillow reported 83 million users, while Trulia reported 54 million — a combined 61 percent of total Internet users for the category, according to the research firm comScore.
Apple Will Beef Up Privacy in iOS 8 — Here’s What It Means for Local (Street Fight)
Steven Jacobs: When Apple unveiled iOS 8 last month, only brief mentions were made of iBeacon, the company’s much-hyped proximity messaging protocol. But early versions of the software suggest that the forthcoming operating system could include changes with implications for stakeholders across the commerce, advertising, and retail technology industries.
Yelp’s Newest Feature Adds Videos To Your Restaurant Reviews (Business Insider)
The restaurant reviews company wrote has added a feature that lets users beef up their reviews with a short video. The videos aren’t supposed to be full reviews, but rather short glimpses into what an establishment has to offer in terms of atmosphere, food, and ambiance.
5 Tools for Cross-Device Ad Targeting (Street Fight)
Ad targeting was relatively straightforward back when consumers relied exclusively on their desktops to consume online content. But as the number of gadgets owned by consumers has increased over time, ad targeting has become considerably more complicated. Here are five companies that offer cross-device tracking for advertisers.
Startups Uber and Airbnb Court Business Travelers (Wall Street Journal)
Airbnb Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc. popularized the concept of a “sharing economy,” where regular consumers share things like car rides and apartments. Now they are sprucing up their services to appeal to the buttoned-up business traveler. (Subscription required)
Cortana Now Taps into Foursquare to Give you Recommendations for Lunch (Engadget)
It turns out that Microsoft had bigger plans for Foursquare than just search and maps for Bing. The check-in service is now accessible by Redmond’s digital assistant, Cortana, making for customizable, local recommendations based on your whereabouts, and presumably, your account history too.
Verizon’s Customer-Rewards Program Comes With Data-Tracking Built In (AdAge)
Verizon Wireless has launched “Smart Rewards,” a loyalty program that tracks subscriber’s location and Internet usage. Jules Polonetsky, executive director and co-chair of the Future of Privacy Forum, suggested Verizon’s approach is more straightforward than other programs or applications that bury location-tracking notifications in terms and conditions.
Apple’s iBeacons Come to Lord & Taylor and Hudson’s Bay Stores (Mashable)
Apple’s iBeacon sensors will be available at Lord & Taylor stores in the United States and select Hudson’s Bay stores in Canada starting Monday, offering customers a more unique in-store shopping experience using mobile devices.
The Bear Case For Uber (Yes, There Is One) (Forbes)
Jeff Bercovici: If there are sane reasons to be bullish on Uber, there are equally solid grounds for doubt. The scenario implied by Uber’s valuation is only one way things could break. There are others in which the company finds its ambitions constrained or even disappears.
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