Street Fight Daily: Postmates Secures Funding Amid Stiff Competition, Gannett Abandons Tronc Bid

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

Postmates Navigates Tough Funding Terrain for Delivery as It Competes with Amazon and Uber (Bloomberg)
Not only does Postmates compete with decades-old courier services and the restaurants themselves, it faces a bevy of other companies that have piled into the on-demand food delivery industry in recent years. Amazon.com and Uber, each with deep pockets, have been diving head first into the food business this year with global ambitions.

Gannett Abandons Effort to Buy Newspaper Publisher Tronc (New York Times)
After six months of pursuit, the Gannett Company said Tuesday that it was withdrawing its offer to acquire the owner of The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune, a deal that would have extended Gannett’s national footprint and furthered consolidation in the newspaper industry.

Why Local Search is Even More Important in the Age of Ad Blocking (Street Fight)
Florian Huebner: With so many people blocking traditional advertising, a growing proportion of internet users cannot be reached through “classic” search engine marketing. That’s why in the context of ad blocking, SEO is still king.

As The Verge Turns Five, Its Redesign Embodies Distribution Age Dynamics (Nieman Lab)
Today, to mark the anniversary, the site is launching a redesign that epitomizes the changes that have swept through the media business since 2011. The website is getting a refresh, and The Verge is also debuting a matching set of graphics and animations that will accompany its videos and designs on platforms like Facebook and YouTube.

Data Helps Marketers Achieve Major Priority: Customer Acquisition (eMarketer)
Acquiring new customers is a major priority for most marketers. But in order to maximize the effectiveness of dollars allocated to acquisition efforts, marketers must place an emphasis on data, audience centricity and the lifetime value of customers, as explored in a new eMarketer report, “Customer Acquisition in the US: A Focus on Data, Audience and Lifetime Value.”

How Data Can Fuel Productive Relationships Between Agencies and Marketers (AdWeek)
How essential is data in any marketer’s relationship with an agency? According to a new study from the Association of National Advertisers, data plays a key part of that relationship, with 80 percent of marketers indicating they use data “often or always” when handling partnerships with agencies.

Native Ads Will Provide 25 Percent of Ad Revenues by 2018 (Poynter)
Native advertising already accounts for 11 percent of ad revenues at news media companies, according to a new report, and will rise to 25 percent in 2018. The study, done jointly by the International News Media Association and the Native Advertising Institute, is based on a survey of 156 publishers worldwide, most of them at newspaper companies.

Uber Drivers Are More Likely to Cancel on Men with ‘Black-Sounding’ Names (Business Insider)
Discrimination against African Americans is a common occurrence among ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft, according to a new study on driver behavior. This study, which was published Monday by researchers at MIT, Stanford, and the University of Washington, recorded data from 1,500 rides in Boston and Seattle.

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