Street Fight Daily: Sizmek Shutters Rocket Fuel Brand, Stitch Fix Prepares IPO in Amazon’s Shadow

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

Sizmek Shuts Down the Rocket Fuel Brand to Focus on Ad Transparency  (AdWeek)
After acquiring ad-tech company Rocket Fuel for $145 million in July, Sizmek is folding Rocket Fuel’s brand and said it will start disclosing the fees included in media buying to instill more trust and transparency for advertisers about how they purchase digital ads.

How Facebook Turns ‘Likes’ Into Dollars Right Down to the Local Level (Street Fight)
Tom Grubisich: Local news publishers typically know many of their community restaurateurs on a first-name basis, and are regular diners at the establishments. But they can’t offer the precise targeting capability of Facebook, whose services are, in most cases, fully automated — greatly lowering their cost.

Stitch Fix Prepares an IPO in the Shadow of Amazon (NYT)
Stitch Fix is an increasingly rare kind of start-up pursuing a public listing, because it has shown it can turn a profit. The question for investors is whether a company whose business could be swamped by Amazon — in this case, selling clothes over the internet — is a safe bet.

How Voice Assistants Could Transform Local – Part II (Street Fight)
Mike Boland: Voice assistants continue to evolve as a medium for local search, as I examined here last month. But what does it mean for local media players and startups? If consumers are increasingly searching with voice, how do you wedge your way into that conversation?

Google AMP Update to Discourage Publishers from Using Teaser Pages (MediaPost)
Consumers searching for information, products, and services on google.com certainly like the idea of pages loading faster on the engine, but some publishers continue to struggle with implementing the proper code and procedures that adhere to Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages project.

How Petco Is Amazon-Proofing Its E-Commerce Strategy (Digiday)
For Petco, with 1,500 locations in the U.S., Mexico and Puerto Rico, competing with Amazon means thinking like a startup. Petco hired Weatherup in April after acquiring his startup PetCoach, a pet advice website and app that pairs pet owners with vets.

Here’s How Mobile App Publishers Are Defending Against Ad Fraud (eMarketer)
A new report by Singular examines some of the top methods used by fraudsters to manipulate the mobile ad ecosystem, as well as some effective defenses against such efforts.

Vox Media Workers Seeking to Join Union (Poynter)
Vox Media, one of the editorially strongest of digital news newcomers, is confronting a new and similar reality to their print and broadcast counterparts: unionization.

Two Years After Going Public, Square Is Worth More Than Twitter (Recode)
Jack Dorsey’s “other” company, Square, is now worth more than Twitter. As of Friday afternoon, the mobile payments firm had a market value of $16.5 billion

The Case for Connectivity (AdExchanger)
Ashley Herzog: Like a good mass transit system, interconnectivity is the key differentiator for advertising technology these days.

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