Street Fight Daily: Google Maps Now Suggests Restaurants, Lyft’s New Carpooling Feature
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…
Google Maps for Android Update Makes It Easier to Choose a Restaurant (The Next Web)
If you go to the Explore section of the Google Maps app, you’ll now be able to pick from a variety of restaurant categories that fit your needs and occasions. The app can provide suggestions for “lunch nearby” or “mission-style Mexican food,” and once you choose a category, it will delve deeper into specifics — photos, ratings, and reviews.
Lyft Line’s Express Re-Route Feature Aims to Get You Where You’re Going Faster (TechCrunch)
Lyft has added a new feature that lets passengers share rides with others headed in the same direction for a lower price. Express Re-Route can assign you to a driver with another passenger whose route closely aligns with yours.
On 2nd Birthday, Fast-Growing “Indie” San Angelo Live Clicks Its Spurs (Street Fight)
Joe Hyde, founder and publisher of San Angelo Live, is seeing his independent community news site in West Texas hit $60,000 in monthly ad revenue. And on its second anniversary, the site continues to attract more unique visitors than the site of its 131-year-old “legacy” competitor.
Sharing Economy Goes Hyperlocal With a Growing Market for Household Items (New York Times)
A growing number of people are using mobile apps to find, borrow, or rent items as diverse as power drills and drones from people living nearby. “We’re shifting from an ownership society to an access society,” said investor Simon Rothman.
Wigo CEO: “The College Market Is a Beautiful Place to Start Something” (Street Fight)
The college meet-up app Wigo, which boasted a valuation of $14 million earlier this year, capitalizes on the ubiquity of smartphones among students as well as that group’s propensity to party and aims to put students looking for a night out in touch with each other.
Any Amazon Prime Customer Can Now Buy Dash Buttons (Mashable)
Amazon’s Dash buttons, which let users make orders with a single tap, are now available to all Prime customers for purchase. A home chock-full of them may make it easier for folks to buy goods more often, and it also lowers the chances of them straying outside of Amazon.
The Click is a Lie: Lessons from the Interruption Curve (Search Engine Land)
Soren Ryherd: Most of us started using clicks to track search campaigns. But as digital has expanded into ever more media options, our click-centric, search-centric tools are breaking down.
LinkedIn Slams Google for “Flawed” Mobile App Study (Recode)
Earlier this week, Google declared it was tweaking its mobile search results to demote sites that run full-screen ads promoting apps, justifying it with a study showing that users dislike those ads. LinkedIn has publicly expressed its wariness of Google’s move, with a LinkedIn mobile product manager calling the study “quite flawed.”
Is Best Buy’s Turnaround a Roadmap for Competing with Amazon? (Los Angeles Times)
Best Buy’s price-match policy has broadened to cover Amazon and other retailing websites, and it ships some products directly from its stores to online customers, which narrows Amazon’s advantage in having strategically situated warehouses. These steps encourage store shoppers to buy on the spot, and online shoppers to hit the checkout button on Bestbuy.com.
BMW Invests Millions in a Startup That Will Park Your Car for You (Business Insider)
BMW has announced an investment in Zirx, a San Francisco-based on-demand parking startup. Zirx is unique in its offerings of add-ons, like car washes, and those offerings are where the company will look to expand through partnerships.
Get Street Fight Daily in your inbox! Subscribe to our newsletter.
