Street Fight Daily: Google Launches ‘Local Guides,’ Ten Years of Google Maps
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…
Google Takes On Yelp Elites With Its New “Local Guides” Program (TechCrunch)
Google is rolling out a “Local Guides” program in an update to Google Maps – a move that seemingly sees the company taking on “Yelp’s Elites” – that is, Yelp’s program where local users gain the status of tastemaker and get invited to special events and parties.
On-Demand Local Services: The End of SMB Advertising as We Know It? (Street Fight)
Mike Boland: On-demand local services flip the traditional local advertising model. Instead of marketing proactively to generate demand, that demand is captured and revealed for service providers to react in real time. Put another way: Marketing is replaced with a commerce engine.
Ten Years of Google Maps, From Slashdot to Ground Truth (Recode)
In 2005, nobody really knew what would come of online maps, or how they would become such a crucial aspect of daily lives in the Internet-connected world. Re/code spoke with the people who were there at the beginning, and brought back their stories of how something that now seems so fundamental came to be.
7 M-Commerce Strategies for SMBs (Street Fight)
Small businesses that don’t have mobile commerce enabled are practically inviting shoppers who can’t wait until they get home to make purchases to switch their business over to larger retail outlets. Here are seven m-commerce strategies from experts in the field.
How Apple’s iOS 8 Changes The Game For Brands And Retailers (Mobile Marketer)
Marketers may have heard about some of the well-publicized features in iOS 8 such as Interactive Notifications and widgets, but there are lesser-known behavioral changes in the new operating system that could have a profound effect on the end-user’s experience.
A Prickly Partnership for Uber and Google (New York Times)
Google, with billions of dollars in the bank and house-by-house maps of most of the planet, seemed like the perfect partner for Uber, the hugely popular ride-hailing service. Bliss between the Internet titan and the hot young company, however, has proved fleeting.
Contextual Awareness: What’s All the Fuss About? (Wired)
One of the hallmarks of recent technology is the way it is designed to respond to the people who use it. This responsiveness is known as “contextual awareness,” where a given computing device uses user-specific data, like location-based technology and sensors to determine their users’ circumstances.
Unilever Beacon Play Serves Up Soup, Engagement In Online-Offline Blend (Mobile Commerce Daily)
A Unilever iBeacon program in Sweden that blended an outdoor sampling truck with a mobile coupon points to how consumer packaged goods companies are ramping up use of the technology to connect the online and offline worlds to drive sales as well as engagement.
Tickets Site SeatGeek Raising Another Giant Investment to Take On StubHub
(Recode)
Less than six months after announcing a $35 million investment from Accel and the Manning brothers, the ticket-search site is closing in on a new investment at a valuation of more than $200 million. The fresh funding is expected to bring in more than the last round — perhaps as much as $50 million.
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