Street Fight Daily: Mary Meeker’s 2015 Internet Trends, Google and Apple Adjust Mobile Payments Strategies
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…
KPCB’s Mary Meeker Points to Slowing Growth in Internet Trends Preso (Re/code)
The tech industry makes a yearly tradition of turning to the fast-talking and data-synthesizing Meeker, a former Wall Street analyst turned late-stage venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers who publishes an influential annual assessment of the Internet economy.
Juice Mobile CEO: Beacons Will Make Location ‘Honest’ (Street Fight)
Neil Sweeney, chief executive of both Juice Mobile and the spin off, Freckle IOT, talks with us about how wearables will impact the mobile ad industry and why beacons will finally help confirm mobile location data.
Google and Apple Adjust Strategies on Mobile Payments (New York Times)
The battle for mobile software dominance revolves around two companies: Apple and Google. Now both giants are also going head-to-head in mobile payments, as they prepare to push deeper into digital wallets. With more consumers willing to make purchases using smartphones, companies are rushing to take the lead in the market.
Google Confirms That a ‘Buy’ Button Is Coming to Search Results (Business Insider)
The move, which was reported earlier this month by the Wall Street Journal, is the latest sign of Google’s ambitions to expand its search engine from being a mere provider of Web links to a one-stop shop where consumers can directly buy whatever strikes their fancy.
You Can Now Shop Local Boutiques on Yelp (Mashable)
Yelp has partnered with Shoptiques, a website that allows customers to shop 1,500 boutiques from more than 1,000 different cities, to directly buy unique boutique products after reading reviews.
Why We Still Search for ‘Starbucks’ on Google Maps (Street Fight)
Vikas Gupta: With calendar integration, a generalized understanding of me generated from analyzing my geographic movements over time, and (perhaps) biosensor feedback from wearables, a mobile app may be able to predict my actual need, and suggest places that may be closer, higher rated, or otherwise more convenient than the Starbucks I now search for.
At Amazon, a Rush to Make Speedy Delivery Free (Wall Street Journal)
Amazon is making same-day delivery free for its Prime members. The effort to lower the cost of shipping for customers is at once offensive and defensive. Startups Uber, Lyft, Deliv, Postmates and others have been experimenting with low-cost or free same-day delivery.
Got A Mobile Strategy? You’re Probably Doing It Wrong (ReadWrite)
Less than a third of North American companies have a mobile strategy that goes out at least 12 months, according to a new Econsultancy/Adobe survey. And for many of those organizations, that strategy often begins and ends with “fitting our website into a mobile app,” or goes only a few steps further.
Google Says ‘Near Me’ Searches Have Doubled This Year (SearchEngineLand)
Search queries that contain a location qualifier such as “nearby” or “near me” have doubled in the past year, according to Google Trends data from March. Eighty percent of those searches come from mobile devices.
Foursquare Ups Recommendation Game With Latest Update (TechCrunch)
Foursquare has released an update that is meant to improve recommendations for users. Though it doesn’t look all that different, the app has been given an under-the-hood makeover. Foursquare is now using even more information about you — places you’ve been, liked, saved, tastes, and people you follow — to determine what your homescreen should show you each time you open the app.
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