Street Fight Daily: Advertisers Return to YouTube, Shopify Launches Square Rival

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

Months Removed from Brand Safety Boycott, YouTube Wins Over Advertisers Again (AdWeek)
Four months after more than 250 brands pulled their advertising from YouTube because ads were appearing next to extremist content, the site’s top-spending marketers are running video ads again, according to new research from ad-sales software firm MediaRadar.

New Street Fight Report: Selling to Local Merchants (Street Fight)
David Card: Street Fight’s latest report on local merchants is a companion piece to our annual survey of local small and medium-sized businesses, that focuses on vendor strategies for selling local marketing services and up-selling add-ons or suites of offerings. 

Shopify Launches New Card Reader to Compete With Square (The Verge)
The Chip & Swipe Reader was completely designed in-house by Shopify. The reader is a competitor to Square Reader, made by merchant services company Square, which has established a huge presence at small businesses, craft markets, and other places where mobility is important.

Nashville Publisher’s Goal From Facebook Journalism Project: More Revenue (Street Fight)
After considerable agitation from news publishers, Facebook launched a Journalism Project earlier this year “to better support publishers’ needs.” A six-month update said the Journalism Project has met with 2,500 publishers around the world to get their stories (and, no doubt, grievances) first hand and offer help with an array of Facebook products.

SMB Index: July Was a Banner Month for Local Stocks (Street Fight)
July 2017 was a  strong month for the SCP SMB Index which gained 4.6% versus the other benchmark indices we track. The SCP SMB Index also outperformed all other indices on a total returns basis, now up 33.2% since Jan 4, 2016.

Facebook Changes the News Feed to Reward Fast-Loading Sites (Business Insider)
The change is in response to frustrations from the Facebook community over slow-loading websites. According to Facebook’s engineers, 40 percent of people won’t wait more than three seconds for a page to load, and Facebook wants to make sure people can spend more time reading the stuff they want. WSJ: Facebook drowns out fake news with more information.

Uber’s Next CEO Needs His/Her Own ‘Team of Rivals’ (VentureBeat)
Haresh Khoobchandani: It might be tempting for Uber’s board to fill the CEO position with someone more tractable than the aggressive Kalanick. Or to build out a management team that will march in lockstep with each other, presenting a united front during the company’s time of great need. But that would be wrongheaded.

ROI-Focused Ad Buyers See Progress on Snapchat’s Measurement Shortcomings (Digiday)
Advertisers have long lamented Snapchat’s lack of third-party data to track return on ad spend. But now that Snapchat is adopting a marketing mix modeling program, which measures the value of all marketing inputs, media buyers are more willing to guide clients to open their purse strings.

Mystro Helps Ride-Share Drivers Earn More from their Rides (TechCrunch)
Mystro hopes to put 33 percent more money per year in the pockets of Uber and Lyft drivers through an app.

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