Street Fight Daily: Yahoo’s Search App Gets a Big Update, Postmates Moves Further into Commerce
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…
Yahoo Search App for iPhone Gets a Bit More ‘Now’ with Personalized Content (Search Engine Land)
Greg Sterling: Yahoo has introduced an updated search app for the iPhone, offering a range of new capabilities with an emphasis on local. In addition to web search results, the on-device content enables users to retrieve package delivery notifications, reservation details, calendar events, and more.
Postmates Digs into Commerce with Curated ’12 Days of Postmates’ Campaign (TechCrunch)
Postmates, the delivery startup that has dug nationwide trenches in the food delivery space, has unveiled a campaign that will let users in select cities order specially curated products. Perhaps more importantly, Postmates is starting to truly move forward with a commerce play after spending years perfecting the art of on-demand delivery for restaurants.
Procter & Gamble’s New Strategy Shows Agencies Still Needed for Programmatic (Digiday)
Procter & Gamble’s recent move to Omnicom, along with its $2 billion a year in marketing, shows that media holding companies are still needed intermediaries even as more online ad-buying becomes automated.
Get Ready: Holiday Returns Season Set to Begin (Street Fight)
During the holiday season, we focus so much attention on when people buy, how much they spend, and whether it got there on time that we tend to overlook what happens once gifts are purchased. An equal test for retailers — both online and brick-and-click — will be making returns as easy as the purchase itself.
Jet.com CEO Marc Lore Explains Why Fighting Amazon Isn’t a Stupid Idea (Recode)
Jet.com CEO Marc Lore doesn’t need to beat Amazon. He’d be pretty happy with second place. “There’s plenty of room for more than one player,” Lore said. “The market is massive.” How massive? Lore said he expects ecommerce in the U.S. to grow from $300 billion to $1 trillion in the next 10 years.
With Mobile Clicks and Seasonal Shopping, Pop-Up Stores Are Booming (NPR)
Mobile technology has made buying stuff easier than ever and shifted the way we shop. What were once permanent, brick-and-mortar stores are now often pop-ups first. As consumers do more and more on mobile devices, short-term leases promised by pop-ups mean brands can be more mobile, too — moving around to where their customers cluster. For those brands, experimenting with spaces that don’t last can lead to a lasting business.
Case Study: Children’s Center Uses Scheduling Platform to Streamline Administrative, Marketing Tasks (Street Fight)
Almost half of small business owners say they’re being overrun by basic administrative tasks. When Roo’s World of Discovery owner Michelle Pollak Landwehr found herself in that same position, spending hours each week on basic administrative tasks like tracking member visits, scheduling classes, and managing recurring payments at her Washington-based children’s indoor play space, she began looking for digital solutions.
Yahoo Investors Tighten Screws (Wall Street Journal)
Investor dissent is mounting in the wake of Yahoo’s announcement last week to shelve a plan to spin off its shares in Alibaba due to potential tax risks and instead explore a spinoff of its core internet business. If the company proceeds with that plan, the maneuver could take more than a year, extending a turnaround attempt that has so far failed to produce signs of growth. (Subscription required)
On-Demand Economy May Dodge Crackdown (The Hill)
Companies like Uber and Lyft appear increasingly likely to avoid an intervention from Washington in the near future targeted at changing the way they treat their workforce. Now, lawmakers are saying the companies should be allowed to experiment with employee classification before “guidelines for this new economy” are created.
The Internet of Things Under One Roof (San Jose Mercury News)
b8ta, a brick-and-mortar retailer dedicated to the Internet of Things, has just opened in Palo Alto, C.A. The store’s founders were motivated by the disconnect between the advanced technology that’s readily available and potential customers’ abilities to experience it in a hands-on environment. “We feel like what we’re doing is building that infrastructure that has been missing from retail,” said founder Vibhu Nordy.
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