Street Fight Daily: Web.com to Acquire Yodle, Foursquare Latest to Embrace On-Demand Delivery
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…
Web.com to Buy Online Advertising Firm Yodle (Wall Street Journal)
Yodle, an online advertising company focusing on small businesses, agreed to be sold to Web.com, which provides services including Web hosting, marketing, and social media. Web.com will pay $300 million at closing for Yodle, followed by payments of $20 million and $22 million. (Subscription required)
Foursquare Adds Deep-Linking Integration with Delivery.com (The Next Web)
Foursquare is adding a new feature to its arsenal: delivery. The service is now integrated with Delivery.com through the Button platform, allowing users to order food, alcohol, and groceries directly from the Foursquare app.
Groupon Soars 23% on Favorable Earnings (TechCrunch)
Groupon soared 23 percent following a better-than-expected fourth quarter earnings release. The company beat revenue forecasts, bringing in $917 million instead of the anticipated $846 million. This is quite the bright spot for the company — until today, the stock had been down 71 percent the past year.
Raise Report: Fresh Funding for Branch Metrics, Spotcap, Geofeedia (Street Fight)
Every two weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes new cash infusions for IdealSpot, The Bouqs, and JANDI.
Visa Now Owns a Big Chunk of Square Shares, Even Though It Has a Competing Product (Business Insider)
Visa is now a major shareholder of Square, owning 9.99 percent of the payments company. Given that Visa wasn’t listed as one of Square’s major shareholders last year, it seems like its ownership significantly increased after Square went public in November.
Openings and New Hires at Factual, Yext, xAd, and ZypMedia (Street Fight)
Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. This week’s edition includes a new company for SinglePlatform founder Wiley Cerilli, a new gig at Soleo for Jovana Riddle, and a chief people officer appointment at Verve.
Why Would Amazon Open Physical Bookstores? More Data, Of Course (GeoMarketing)
Birte Steen: In years past, big online players like Amazon were able to collect a hugely diverse amount of information about customers, while offline retailers did not have the same opportunity. That is, until beacons arrived. We’re clearly at an inflection point, where the focus of proximity is turning more to the value of the data itself.
Delivery Startups Face Road Bumps in Quest to Capture Untapped Market (New York Times)
Based on a belief that delivery companies would succeed once they grew to enormous scale, investors poured more than $730 million into startups like DoorDash, Instacart, and Postmates from early 2014 through the first half of 2015. But these investors are beginning to find that the economics of making a delivery service work are far from easy, with problems rooted in high operating costs.
Uber and Airbnb Call On EU to Support Collaborative Economy (The Guardian)
Airbnb, Uber, TaskRabbit, and 47 other companies have penned an open letter calling on the European Union to prevent member states from clamping down on their businesses. The signatories call for member states to “continue to seek to ensure that local and national laws do not unnecessarily limit the development of the collaborative economy to the detriment of Europeans”.
Google, Microsoft’s Move to Mobile Changes Future of Mapping (MediaPost)
As more consumers leave their desktops for mobile phones, Google and Microsoft have been building up their mobile mapping applications, changing business models, and shuttering data services and tools for desktop. Now some believe that both companies have turned their attention away from business mapping technology and toward mapping services that generate advertising revenue.
Smartphone Users Want Real-Time Promotions (eMarketer)
Consumers use their smartphones a great deal when shopping, and according to November 2015 research, receiving real-time promotions on their phones is one of top retail services they desire.
LBMA Podcast: Citymapper, Land Rover, Indoo.rs, and Micello (Street Fight)
On the show: Order Domino’s from Amazon Echo; Los Angeles GeoHub; Ace Hotel and WeTransfer; Starbreeze’s Starcade virtual reality arcade; Land Rover’s #hibernot Instagram campaign; Screenvision and Mobiquity bring beacons to the movies.
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