Street Fight Daily: Yahoo Hits Major Roadblock, Amazon Eyes Food Delivery in London
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…
Yahoo’s Recent Revenue Driver, Mavens, Hits Major Growth Roadblock (Business Insider)
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has long touted Mavens, short for mobile, video, native, and social revenue, as the company’s new growth driver. But Mavens growth came to a screeching halt last quarter, when it saw only a 7% year-on-year revenue increase in the first three months of the year. That’s a serious slowdown compared to previous quarters: Mavens grew 58% in the same quarter of last year, and 26% in the three months preceding last quarter.
Amazon Eyeing Up London Restaurant Delivery Launch (TechCrunch)
With Deliveroo and Uber currently battling it out on London’s streets to deliver food from local restaurants, a third player with deep pockets may be about to enter the fight. According to multiple sources within the tech and food industry, Amazon is eyeing up a launch for its Amazon Restaurants service in the U.K. capital city.
Pokémon Go and Local: Why Now? (Street Fight)
Michael Boland: The lesson from the phenomenon isn’t for local tech companies to try and build the next Pokémon Go — but rather to build a similarly justifiable value exchange for sharing location. Advertisers and ad networks should likewise work with apps that have that higher likelihood of user opt-in.
Facebook Woos Publishers Back with Instant Articles Feature (MediaPost)
Close on the heels of its announcement that it will be reducing the amount of publisher content users see in their news feeds, the world’s biggest social network is wooing them again with a new feature allowing users to send each other links to Instant Articles in its popular Messenger function.
Survey: Many Opportunities to Connect Local Media with National-to-Local Marketers (Street Fight)
David Card: National brands and retailers remain wedded to traditional media and marketing for their local branches, franchises, and resellers. However, they are increasing their spending on digital channels, and over half of them feel it’s important to associate their campaigns with local media and content.
Major Quick-Serve Restaurant Builds Social Ordering Platform via Facebook and Twitter (Digiday)
Pizza Hut is building a social ordering platform that starts with chatbots in Facebook Messenger and Twitter Direct Messages. The new chatbots, which will be available in the U.S. this August, can help consumers order quickly or receive brand information in a timely manner.
Beacon Adopters Mostly Satisfied, But Universal Adoption Far Away (eMarketer)
In 2014, Macy’s announced that after a test run in New York and San Francisco, the company would expand its beacon program to all of its store locations nationwide. Companies like Alex and Ani, Lord & Taylor, American Eagle, and Sephora also deployed beacons within their store locations. But years later, beacons have not revolutionized in-store shopping, and there is little news, results or even chatter about them. So what happened?
The Missing Pieces of Mobile Web Monetization (AdExchanger)
Eric Berry: The harsh reality that mobile simultaneously represents the greatest opportunity for growth in content consumption while providing a nearly punitive monetization rate has created an unfortunately mixed set of incentives. Through a combination of real and proposed solutions, however, publishers stand to see their mobile web fortunes improve.
ZipCar Partners with Wrapify to Drive Offline Traffic (AdWeek)
ZipCar is rolling out a campaign in Seattle and Washington D.C. that blends an old-school advertising technique with new technology — it’s wrapping ads around cars and tracking how many people see them. The company partnered with Wrapify, a San Diego startup that pays drivers to cover their cars with branding and data-tracking technology.
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