Street Fight Daily: Patch Hits Profitability, GrubHub Enters Delivery Wars
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…
Has Patch Finally Cracked The Code On Hyperlocal? (Digiday)
A year after AOL sold the struggling division to investment firm Hale Global, its new owners say the stripped-down Patch is profitable, evidence that there’s actually a business model for hyperlocal news. The company said it took in $17 million in revenue and was profitable in 2014.
GrubHub Has Made Its Biggest Move Since the Seamless Merger (Street Fight)
In the most important move since its merger with Seamless, GrubHub has acquired two delivery companies in an effort to build its own delivery network. The move marks a transition in the company’s strategy from a focus on moving an existing delivery market online to using the web to expand the delivery market as a whole.
CEO Says Yelp Is at ‘Peak Desktop’ — Is It Also Nearing Peak Growth? (Street Fight)
Yelp posted its first-ever annual profit Thursday, but sluggish user growth sent shares of the reviews company tumbling in after-hours trading. As much as Yelp may want to rid itself of its dependency on Google, the search giant has provided a critical platform for it to grow its user base.
Should Instagram Let Brands Target Users Based on Location? (AdWeek)
The success of Foot Locker’s Instagram campaign last week raises an intriguing question: Should the Facebook-owned photo- and video-sharing app incorporate the ability to zero in on consumers based on their whereabouts?
Community Publishers Mixed on Borrell Prescription for Content (Street Fight)
Tom Grubisich: Gordon Borrell minced no words in Street Fight recently when he talked about content and audience in the revenue-hot digital space that his new annual local media report pinpoints. “It’s so much not about readers,” he said. “It’s so much more about consumers.”
The Shack of Radios in the Shadow of Internet Mansions (Recode)
The original business model that made RadioShack so successful in the era of easy access electronic retail was a slow-turn, high-margin model. But with the birth of e-commerce, many of RadioShack’s SKUs became easily accessible online — and with very fast delivery.
Why Your Mobile & Geo Modifiers For Paid Search Aren’t Getting The Job Done (Search Engine Land)
Andy Taylor: Mobile and location bid adjustments are both hugely important functions of Enhanced Campaigns. However, dissecting phone performance by geography uncovers some interesting trends for advertisers to consider in their management of these modifiers.
Palantir Buys Fancy That to Add Retail, Shopping Data to Its Analytics Platform (TechCrunch)
Palanatir, a shadowy analytics company popular among security and government firms, has acquired Fancy That, a startup that has built a platform to help retailers with their omnichannel strategies across physical stores, online, mobile and other platforms where they sell goods and communicate with customers.
Moovit Crowdsources Public Transit Data, So You’ll Never Get Stuck Waiting For the Bus Again (Fast Company)
Moovit, an Israeli startup that recently raised $50 million for its app, takes a lot of the headache out of navigating public transportation. Moovit uses a combination of official transit information and crowdsourced live updates to provide accurate information on a city’s public transportation city at any given moment.
LBMA Podcast: Samsung’s Mobile Payments, Trippeo CEO (Street Fight)
On the show: Adobe’s Target and Campaign services; Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act; Drones for Good; Maponics Communities; Unacast & TCS partner; Merrell moves into virtual reality; American Express + HUSH; Facebook Place Tips.
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