Street Fight Daily: Pinterest Eyes Small Business, More Fuel For Taxi Wars

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

pinterest-iconPinterest Expands Self-Serve Promoted Pins Platform To More Businesses (TechCrunch)
Pinterest has confirmed that the company is rolling out its Promoted Pins platform to more businesses. The performance-based advertising platform is aimed at small to medium-sized businesses looking to gain more views for their Pins from Pinterest users.

Report: Mobile Context and Location Services Market to Reach $43.3 Billion by 2019 (Street Fight)
The mobile context and location services market is set to reach $43.3 billion by 2019, according to a new report. That’s up from an estimated $12.2 billion in 2014. The report also found that by 2019, more than two-thirds of revenues will be driven through highly targeted and contextually aware ad-supported apps.

More Fuel for Taxi Wars: GetTaxi Raises $25 Million (Financial Times)
Competition between app-based cab booking services has increased another notch with GetTaxi, which is used to hail rides in 24 cities in four countries, securing another $150m in equity funding. Unlike many of its international rivals, GetTaxi provides the hardware for its drivers to pick up fares rather than making them download software to their own smartphones.

The Government’s Upping Its Phone-Tracking Game (Voice of San Diego)
On the federal level, officials have spent millions of dollars on devices to track mobile phones, and we’re seeing use crop up in more and more cities – San Diego included. Here’s how one company’s systems track phones without being detected, how the government is using it today and what might be some areas of concern.

Dear Uber and Lyft – Get Your S*** Together (FeldThoguhts)
Brad Feld: Guys – I’m bummed at the mud you are slinging at each other. I get that this is an intensely competitive market. Keep on competing aggressively. But recognize that you are radically disrupting a market desperately in need of disruption and doing it beautifully. Don’t shit all over it, and yourself in the process.

How Santa Barbara’s Noozhawk Zeroes In on News and Profits (Street Fight)
Tom Grubisich: In the increasingly tough world of community journalism — where both readers and advertisers can be fickle and local advertising markets like Santa Barbara are crowded with competitors — Noozhawk succeeds because it’s not in the news business, but “the business of news.” Here, founder Bill Macfayden explains what that means.

Groupon Is Adding 100 Snapchat Followers a Day (AdWeek)
Since beginning a Snapchat account one week ago, Groupon has gained 700 followers with daily challenges that give out prizes for interacting with the brand. Groupon started using Snapchat last week to promote an offer with rapper Wiz Khalifa.

Silicon Valley Is Ruining “Sharing” for Everybody (New Republic)
Noam Scheiber: The insistence that the sharing economy has tapped into a deep yearning for social interaction is both the most idealistic and least questioned assumption among its boosters. But for-profit “sharing” represents by far the fastest-growing source of un- and under-regulated commercial activity in the country.

Why Place And Context Are Crucial For Understanding Consumer Behavior (AdExchanger)
Jessica Yiu: The golden rule in real estate is location, location, location. The same mantra has been adopted by the world of digital marketing, albeit with a slightly different meaning, because human behavior, including consumer habits and preferences, is fundamentally shaped by places and contexts.

Mobile Is A Meta-Channel — That’s Why It Will Solve Attribution Challenge (MediaPost)
Cory Treffiletti: Mobile’s biggest benefit is understanding the path back and forth from different devices and into the offline world. 2015 is going to be the year when cross-device mapping becomes commonplace, and marketers will know by matching mobile devices (including location), desktops and other screens what the actual path was for a consumer on her journey.

With a New CEO in Charge, Here’s the Scoop on What’s Next for Urbanspoon (GeekWire)
Urbanspoon’s early success in mobile helped lead to a 2009 sale to IAC, which promised to drive traffic to the site from the company’s other brands, including About.com and Citysearch. But five years later, it still cowers in size compared to the competition, so identifying new opportunities is essential to the company’s growth.

Beautified Gets $1.2 Million Seed, Updates Its Look And Takes On StyleSeat In SF And LA (TechCrunch)
he last minute booking app for last minute hair and beauty appointments in New York, Beautified, announced the raise of $1.2 million in seed funding from a number of investors. The company rolling out an invite-only service for users in Los Angeles and San Francisco, with plans to fully launch in the fall of 2014 and early 2015.

Yahoo And Square Both Wanted To Buy The Same Startup — Here’s Why The Founders Chose Yahoo (Business Insider)
A few years ago, Yahoo acquired Stamped, a startup that built an app to let people list their favorite things. But the company was also being pursued by Square. So why did a startup choose a struggling media company over one of the hottest startups in the world?

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