Street Fight Daily: Andrew Mason’s Next Big Thing, Square Bets on Chips
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology
Groupon Founder’s Next Big Plan: Audio Walking Tours (Businessweek)
Andrew Mason, the founder and former CEO of Groupon, is back with a new startup, Detour, which he is trying to build into a central repository for a new kind of GPS-based neighborhood walking tour. The guided-tour industry brings in tens of billions a year, so it may actually be a big deal — if it works.
On Its 10th Birthday, Yelp Turns a Profit (Street Fight)
Ten years in, and Yelp is now in the black. The company beat analysts’ expectations, reporting better-than-expected revenues Wednesday with strong top-line growth and a million dollars in profit for the first time in its history.
Square Bets Big on Next-Gen Credit Card Tech (Wired)
Square first came to fame with a credit card reader you could plug into your iPhone jack. But next year, the company’s signature device will be on its way to obsolescence as the U.S transitions to a new kind of credit card that verifies purchases with an embedded computer chip.
Outdoor Advertising, a Media Anomaly, Knocks on the Digital Door (Street Fight)
Billboards, like most things in our lives, are getting smarter. A report released this morning by PQ Media estimates that digital out-of-home advertising in the U.S. generated $2.37 billion last year, or 32% of the $7.4 billion of the total outdoor advertising market
Payments Giant First Data Acquires Gyft in an Effort to Bring Digital Gift Cards to the Masses (Pando)
Gyft, a Redwood City-based virtual gift card provider has agreed to an acquisition by payment giant First Data, Pando has learned. Gyft allows consumers to purchase, send (aka, gift), manage and redeem gift cards digitally via their mobile devices, making it cheaper and more efficient for both consumers and merchants.
Daily Voice Expands Into Roger Ailes’ Territory (Street Fight)
Tom Grubisich: The Daily Voice has expanded to Putnam County in the Lower Hudson Valley, creating the regional corporate network’s 42nd site in the affluent suburban New York-Connecticut market. Tucker said Putnam Daily Voice’ was launched “with zero expansion” of staff, which includes eight reporters covering a number of communities in the New York-Connecticut suburbs.
Ad Analytics And Targeting Company Dstillery Raises $24M More For Mobile Growth (TechCrunch)
Dstillery, the marketing company formerly known as Media6Degrees, is announcing that it has raised $24 million in Series C funding. So far, its mobile efforts have focused on location data, but the company says its next step is to start analyzing in-app behavior, and to expand beyond the United States.
For New Jersey’s Local News Lab, Collaboration Is Key to Success (MediaShift)
An initiative called the Local News Lab (LNL) started about a month ago with the hopes of finally getting to the bottom of the community news sub-industry. The hope is that LNL will produce pointers on local news sustainability and how to make community journalism a collaborative effort.
Expedia Becomes A New York City Hotel After Google’s Pigeon Local Update (SearchEngineLand)
Google recently released a major local search algorithm update, which the company said will lead to a more useful and relevant experience for searchers seeking local results. But like with any new algorithm launch, there are always bugs, unexpected outcomes and less relevant results.
Sour Jacks’ Mobile Ads Steer Movie Fans to Outdoor Summer Screening (AdWeek)
Over the past week, Sour Jacks has been running Facebook mobile ads in New York to pinpoint consumers who are going to the Hudson River Park’s River Flicks summer movie series. uch promos today home in from a 10-mile radius to a one-mile area in Manhattan’s midtown and downtown neighborhoods.
Y Combinator-Backed Kash Lets Retailers Offer Starbucks-Like Mobile Payments While Cutting Out Credit Cards (TechCrunch)
f you’ve been to a Starbucks in the past year or so, it’s almost guaranteed you’ve seen someone in line pay with their smartphone by opening the Starbucks app. Kash is hoping to bring the same experience to other retailers and small businesses while cutting out one of their biggest costs: credit card fees.
For Beacons, There’s No ‘One-App Solution,’ Says inMarket (Geomarketing)
Anyone can build a beacon, but it takes a lot of help to scale it as a business, says Todd Dipaola, inMarket’s CEO/co-founder. The answer to advancing inMarket’s growth is therefore not just wrapped up in promoting itself as the one-stop shop for beacon-based marketing.
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