Street Fight Daily: Google Says Sites Can Still Opt Out of Web Crawling, The Alexa Revolution

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

Good News for Yelp — Google Will Continue to Allow Sites to Opt Out of Its Web Crawling (Business Insider)
Google said this week that it will maintain an agreement to let sites opt-out of web crawling by the search giant, even though the agreement expires on December 27. Websites like Yelp have complained over the years that Google unfairly “scrapes” content from their websites and monetizes that content on search results pages.

Millions Use Alexa to Shop, and Brands Need to Start Paying Attention (AdWeek)
Voice assistants are quickly becoming an essential cog in millions of American households. Industry experts believe this is an important opportunity for brands to capitalize on voice-assisted shopping—either to push forward to create strategic capabilities around voice, or to play wait-and-see.

Street Fight’s Predictions for 2018: Part One (Street Fight)
As 2017 draws to a close, we’ve once again asked Street Fight staffers, columnists, and friends to look into their crystal ball and offer prognostications for what they thought will be the biggest story (or stories) in local in 2018.

Brand Safety in 2017: Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going (AdExchanger)
If this was the year of faux pas, mea culpas and the start of a move toward better controls, 2018 will be about buckling down.

Marketers Need Artificial Intelligence to Reach the Segment of One (eMarketer)
Radoslaw Dobrolecki: It’s a marketer’s dream to be able to predict a customer’s next move and make decisions based off that. But with an increasing volume of customer data at their fingertips, marketers need technology to help with the almost overwhelming task.

Oath’s CRO Talks Mobile Advertising in 2018 (MediaPost)
Last week, Oath, a subsidiary of Verizon Communications launched in 2017 and specializing in digital content, introduced new digital advertising formats it is testing. Encompassing augmented reality, utility, native and social advertising, the company’s advertising plan is mobile-focused as it enters its second year in the ring.

5 Things We Learned About Facebook and Fake News This Year (Digiday)
This year, Facebook faced a backlash over enabling fake news and racist ads, got hauled in front of Congress for spreading Russian propaganda, and found itself under the attack from European regulators.

Uber May Be Aflame, But Its Self-Driving Cars Are Getting Good (Wired)
Uber was the first in the US to launch this kind of program, in Pittsburgh in September of 2016. And while 2017 has been an overall disaster for the ridehailing company, the signs of progress on the self-driving front are clear. Recode: It’s judgment day for the SoftBank-Uber deal.

Instagram Will Now Add Recommended Posts to the Feed (TechCrunch)
The new section, “Recommended for You,” is clearly labeled so as not to be confused with your own home feed. It will contain three to five suggested posts, we’re told.

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