Street Fight Daily: Facebook in Another Metrics Scandal, Big-Boxes Partner with Amazon/Google

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

A New Phase for Street Fight (Street Fight)
Laura Rich: After seven years of total obsession with the digital and mobile disruption that has taken place in local marketing, I have decided to step down from my position as Street Fight’s CEO. Creating and growing this business has been extremely rewarding, and I write this post as a huge thank you.

Facebook Tells Advertisers It Can Reach More Young People Than Exist (NYT)
Facebook faced criticism on Wednesday after an analyst pointed out that the company’s online advertising tools claim they can reach 25 million more young Americans than the United States census says exist.

Attribution and Measurement are Creating a Data Management Arms Race (Street Fight)
“When you look at the shifts taking place in the ecosystem, there’s such a focus on data for so many smart reasons from a marketer’s perspective,” says NinthDecimal CEO David Staas. “They really want to be able to better understand their customers, and one of the biggest problems is filling in that blind spot in customer intelligence.”

Kohl’s and Home Depot Sign On to Sell Voice Assistants In-House (VentureBeat)
Amazon and Google took steps Wednesday in their continuous march to bring AI assistants Alexa and Google Assistant closer to consumers by partnering with big-box stores.

‘Media-Nxt’: How Local News Can Finally Enter Its Digital 21st Century (Street Fight)
The newly published report “Media-Nxt” wants to help the local news industry not only to know what it should do, but also actually start doing it. Its main authors are the students of Sean Branagan. In this Q & A, he explains why new technology is so hard for the local news industry to adopt – but why it should and must take the leap.

Yext Touts 38% Revenue Growth as It Adds Retail Locations to Search (TechCrunch)
The company showed that for the quarter ending in July it brought in $40.8 million in revenue, up 38 percent from the same period last year. But Yext is still not profitable.

Lyft Is Launching a Fleet of Self-Driving Cars in San Francisco (Wired)
Lyft is launching a fleet of self-driving cars, and select customers in the San Francisco Bay Area will be offered free rides in autonomous cars developed and operated by self-driving outfit Drive.ai.

Future of Retail? Nike’s New Toy Lets You Design and Print Custom Shoes in an Hour (AdWeek)
Nike and Wieden + Kennedy’s The Lodge have unveiled what they believe is a glimpse into the future of retail with an experience in New York City that lets visitors design their own one-of-a-kind sneakers, which are ready to wear in less than 90 minutes.

Gannett Makes Company-Wide Cuts in Reorganization (Poynter)
Gannett is cutting less than 1 percent of its total workforce in a company-wide reorganization. Gannett, which has more than 20,000 employees globally, continues to battle declining print advertising earnings.

YouTube’s Brand Safety Crackdown Comes with Collateral Damage (Digiday)
This past May in New York City, YouTube held a summit for its top 100 or so video personalities, individuals and networks. One issue that some attendees felt YouTube needed to address: declining ad revenue.

Study: 8 in 10 Consumers Appreciate Not Being Forced to Watch Native Ads (MediaPost)
A new study finds that consumers are increasingly willing to give brands permission to engage with them via native advertising. But eight in 10 of those surveyed appreciate when they aren’t forced to watch ads; in other words, consumers appreciate a choice.

Get Street Fight Daily in your inbox! Subscribe to our newsletter.