Street Fight Daily: Washington Post’s Digital Rise, Snapchat Ends Local Stories
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…
Leaked Memo Supplies Details on the Washington Post’s Digital, Financial Success (Digiday)
CRO Jed Hartman wrote that the Post’s annual digital ad revenue is a “nine-figure” business, which stands in contrast to the $60 million that New York magazine estimated in a recent profile. He wrote that total ad revenue is up year over year, led by a 48 percent increase in digital sales through August.
Snapchat Ends Local Stories to Focus on Live Events (The Verge)
Snapchat is getting rid of the collaborative Stories that let you see what people in and around big cities are up to. These local Stories apparently just weren’t as popular as Snapchat’s other features. Group stories will continue to live on here and there, but they’ll be focused on big events.
Making Sense of the Mobile Marketing Spending Disparity (Street Fight)
Josh Speyer: Consumers’ relationships with media and mobile devices have changed. Advertising needs to change as well. The responsibility is with advertisers and their agencies and service providers to demand the granularity and specificity that you can only achieve with the targeted data you get from mobile advertising.
LinkedIn Offers Brands Attribution for Ads on its Site (AdWeek)
The professional social network is launching conversion tracking for advertisers today that shows how many people took an action such as purchasing a product or signing up for a service after viewing either a text ad or a piece of sponsored content.
As 10-Year Mark Approaches, West Seattle Blog Sticks to Profitable Basics (Street Fight)
In December 2005, West Seattle Blog was a “personal project” with no news or advertising. A major windstorm that struck West Seattle and King County in December 2006 changed all that, and in the nearly 10 years since, WSB has become a highly regarded inspiration for independent digital community sites.
Amazon Adds Food Delivery in London (Mashable)
Amazon took another step this week to capitalize on the delivery wars. The e-commerce giant on Wednesday launched food delivery in London. The service is available only to Prime subscribers via the Prime Now app.
At the News Media Alliance, More Than the Name is Changing (Poynter)
Newspaper companies have pursued digital innovation and reinvention in feverish fashion this year, so it only makes sense for their trade association to reboot as well. The name change, CEO David Chavern told me in a phone interview Tuesday, is “in some ways the least of it.”
Mercedes is Making Special Vans for ‘Free-Floating Fleets’ of Delivery Bots (Quartz)
Starship and Mercedes-Benz plan to develop Robovan, a Benz van designed to contain eight Starship delivery robots and their intended cargo. The van delivers the bots to an optimal location in a particular neighborhood for delivery, disgorges the robots who make their rounds autonomously, then return to the vehicle.
Is Target the Next Digital Media Giant? (AdAge)
After quietly creating its own “guest access” platform, which offers targeted marketing opportunities for Target vendors last year, the retailer is now opening the product up to all national advertisers. On Thursday Target will announce the program’s expansion to advertisers beyond those found on Target shelves, including automotive brands, financial firms and travel companies.
Marketers’ Ability to Use Data Gains Sophistication (MediaPost)
According to survey data, U.S. marketers reported record levels of confidence in the practice of data-driven marketing and its prospects for growth following the second quarter of 2016, even as they signaled that the revenues generated by their data-driven efforts grew at slower pace.
Get Street Fight Daily in your inbox! Subscribe to our newsletter.
