Street Fight Daily: IAB’s Annual Digital Report, Publishers Threatened by the Rise of Platforms

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…

Digital Advertising Revenue Jumped 20% in 2015 (Adweek)
Digital advertising revenues reached $59.6 billion in the U.S. in 2015, marking a 20 percent jump compared to the year before, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s annual study. Mobile, social, and programmatic drove the continued growth.

Online Media Is Tested When Social Platforms Come to Town (New York Times)
To publishers, the rise of platforms has been disorienting at best, as it threatens many of their business models. “Let’s say you’re an established company, and now there’s a multisided platform in your business…say you have to play on that multisided platform, because they’re big and everyone else is playing. The concern is always commoditization,” said economist Andrei Hagiu.

Openings and New Hires at MindBody, NavAds, TruMeasure (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 moves and new openings at Wrap Media, Yieldbot, and Facebook.

Most Smartphone Owners Use Location-Based Services (eMarketer)
Nine in 10 U.S. smartphone owners use location services on their phone, according to data from Pew Research Center. Still, there is significant room for growth. Often the use of location-based content, services, or features is tangential to the core value proposition of the app.

Raise Report: New Funding for Affirm, NestAway, Rinse (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 AdTile, Luka, and Beekeeper.

Google’s Parent Alphabet Misses Profit Expectations As Moonshot Spend Soars (The Guardian)
Google’s parent company Alphabet saw its revenue grow 17 percent during the first three months of this year, but spent more money on its experimental moonshot projects, engineers, data centers, and YouTube shows, causing it to miss investors’ profit expectations. The company took in $20.3B during the first quarter, the vast majority of which came from Google ad sales, which brought in about $18B.

Survey Finds Most SMB Advertisers on Facebook Spend Less Than $50 Per Month (Marketing Land)
Generating awareness is the number one marketing scenario for small businesses on Facebook, according to a new survey from local business networking site Alignable. Among SMBs that advertise on the social site, the majority are spending only modest amounts of money.

Why mHelpDesk’s New Payment Tool Is a Square Killer (DCInno)
A wide range of businesses use Square’s payments hardware and software, but mHelpDesk COO Ryan Shank believes that his company could be central to beating Square out of the home improvement market. Why? Its parent company is HomeAdvisor, one of the biggest brands in the space, which has plans to launch a massive advertising campaign in the next year.

Five Ways AI Will Impact Marketing Over the Next 12 Months (AdAge)
Jeremy Wilson: With all the buzz about AI and the launch of the Facebook bot marketplace, I thought it might be helpful to look at the potential implications for marketers and provide a relatively jargon-free look at some of the near-term opportunities. At a high level, it’s about using AI to power more direct interactions between brands and people, focusing on faster, smarter responses to their questions and needs.

Google Has Quietly Figured Out a Way to Fight Back Against One of Facebook’s Key Advantages (Business Insider)
One of Facebook’s selling points to brands has always been that, because its network is identity-based, it can better track all of a users’ data and activity across devices to target ads. But now mobile is helping Google increase its percentage of “logged in” users.

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