Street Fight Daily: Amazon’s Shipping Ambitions, Search Engines Remain Crucial to Local Discovery

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

Amazon’s Plan to Dominate the Shipping Industry Is Taking Shape (Quartz)
Amazon is exploring what role autonomous-vehicle technology could have in its business. The research is still in an early, exploratory phase, but hints at a larger plan of Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos: to own the delivery and logistics chain for its packages, and make it as efficient as possible.

Unlocking Audiences for Brands: Uniting Client Goals with Demographic Research (Street Fight)
Anna Chandler: Uniting your client’s instincts with actionable data from social media, keyword research, content analysis, and analytics creates a hyperlocal strategy to reach their most interested clients. There are four key strategies for marketing companies that want to take their clients beyond mere traffic increases to high ROI and conversion rates.

Most Internet Users Prefer Search Engines to Find Local Products (eMarketer)
According to a March 2017 survey of US internet users, eight out of 10 respondents said a search engine was their top choice among a collection of digital and nondigital sources to look up information for local businesses last year.

Square Reportedly Paid Less Than $3 Million for Yik Yak’s Engineers (VentureBeat)
Square has reportedly acquired the engineering team from Yik Yak, an anonymous social networking service. It was said that the deal was worth less than $3 million and was described as an acquihire.

Publishers Say Facebook Can Save Instant Articles with Better Data, Subscription Tools (Digiday)
“If IA monetization doesn’t dramatically improve, high quality publishers will continue to pull out,” said Dan Check, vice chairman of Slate. “There’s just no reason for publishers to continue to lose money on IA this far after launch.”

Uber Gets Sued Over Alleged ‘Hell’ Program to Track Lyft Drivers (TechCrunch)
Uber has another lawsuit on its hands. This time, it’s about Uber’s alleged use of a program called “Hell.” The plaintiff, Michael Gonzales, drove for Lyft during the time Uber allegedly used the software.

Macaroni Kid Pushes Stroller Into Big and Site-Packed Local Parent Space (Street Fight)
One of the earliest hyperlocal networks for parents, Macaroni Kid was founded by “recovering lawyer” Joyce Shulman and her husband, marketing entrepreneur Eric Cohen, in their community on Long Island in 2009. In this Q&A, Cohen talks about the company’s recent acquisition of also-well-established Stroller Traffic.

Wall Street Thinks Twitter’s Business is Shrinking (Recode)
Wall Street think Twitter’s business is shrinking, and expects the company to report its first-ever year-over-year revenue decline when it releases earnings on Wednesday.

Instagram’s Rapid Attack on Snapchat, In One Chart (Business Insider)
Jeff Dunn: Over the past year, Mark Zuckerberg and company appear to have found a way to stunt Snapchat’s growth: Make a total rip-off, but do so within an app that’s already massively popular.

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