Street Fight Daily: Square Kills Order, Facebook Buys The Find
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…
Square Kills Square Order, the Food Pickup App That Was Square Wallet 2.0 (Recode)
Square’s obsession with being a consumer business in addition to its initial focus on small businesses appears closer to an end. Jack Dorsey’s company said on Friday that it was shutting down Square Order, an app that let consumers pre-order food and coffee for pickup from local businesses.
Facebook Acquires Shopping Search Engine, TheFind (Marketing Land)
The social network today acquired TheFind, a shopping search engine with an index of 500 million products across 500,000 stores. TheFind’s technology personalizes the shopping experience for signed-in users, who are given the choice to tie in their Facebook accounts, making it possible to taylor their experience based on Facebook “likes.”
What You Need to Know About Google’s New Mobile-friendly Algorithm (Street Fight)
Matt Matergia: Google recently took to their Webmaster Central Blog to announce an upcoming algorithm change that will take effect on April 21st and affect large brands and small businesses alike. Going forward, mobile-friendly sites will likely rank higher in search results.
Snapchat Launches Local Channel for New Yorkers (AdWeek)
One of the app’s most popular features, its Local section used widely on college campuses, is now giving New Yorkers a way to send snaps to one big “Our Story,” creating a quick montage of what’s happening all around town. Snapchat has offered a similar experience for many universities, and the feature has graduated to larger cities recently.
#LDS15 VIDEO: The Potential — And Pitfalls — Of Beacon Marketing (Street Fight)
It’s not just about the product or service anymore — retailers must support a positive shopper experience across different channels in order to compete. During a panel at Street Fight’s Local Data Summit in Denver, experts discussed the need to address a new consumer journey where consumers move fluently between the digital and physical worlds.
Whisper Says It Doesn’t Track Your Exact Location—But It Still Could (ReadWrite)
Concerns over just how anonymous the secret-sharing app Whisper is are back in the news, and the company is once again suggesting that there’s no way it could track its users’ exact location. There’s just one problem: That’s almost certainly not true.
Separation by Numbers: Ebay Publishes Roadmap for Its Paypal Spinoff (Pando)
Despite eBay announcing plans to spin off its prized payment subsidiary PayPal more than five months ago, the companies remain very much united today. So is the glacial pace of adjusting course on a massive battleship. But with separation day fast-approaching, eBay has published a roadmap outlining what to expect in the weeks and months ahead.
Is Locally-focused Marketing the Next Trend in Content Marketing? (Local Search Insider)
Perhaps no better marketing term describes our current digital age better than hyperlocal, which is fast and nearby. Speaking of nearby, 91% of mobile users have their handheld device within arm’s reach at all times, and 75% of Americans admit to taking their smartphone with them into the bathroom.
Near Me Is Dead, Long Live iBeacons — At SXSW (Mashable)
Remember the Near Me app craze from a few years ago? At SXSW 2013, Highlight and Banjo were the hot apps of the moment. No one talks about them much anymore and they’re certainly not a presence here at SXSW 2015. But there is a presence watching, connecting and ready to provide hyper-local information almost whenever you need it: iBeacons.
No, Driver Lawsuits Won’t Destroy the ‘Uber For X’ Business Model (Washington Post)
Two U.S. District Court judges in California dropped ominous rulings for Uber and Lyft this week, clearing the way to a jury trial on the question of whether their drivers are independent contractors or bona fide employees. But could these cases destroy the “Uber for X” business model, as some have fretted? Not necessarily.
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