Street Fight Daily: Lyft Expands Service for Businesses, Marketers React to Facebook’s Latest

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

Lyft Concierge, a Ride-Booking Service for Businesses, Expands (TechCrunch)
Lyft today announced it’s expanding its Concierge program – the service that allows organizations to schedule rides for other people – to more business customers.

Lots of Facebook News — But Little Progress in Local (Street Fight)
David Card: Instead of integrating multi-media news consumption with entertainment, community conversations, events calendars, advertising, and a buyers and sellers marketplace, Facebook is isolating them as components. While this is consistent with its separate apps approach, it likely won’t result in as much audience cross-fertilization as it should. Nor does it feel at all local advertiser-friendly.

The Ad Community Reacts to Facebook’s Latest Tweak of the News Feed (AdWeek)
Facebook’s announcement on Jan. 11th about its latest changes to its News Feed algorithm brought swift reaction from social media, agencies and others in the sector—and most of that reaction hasn’t been exactly positive. Digiday: Apple News isn’t a great alternative to Facebook for publishers.

Should Local Businesses Ask for Reviews? (Street Fight)
Damian Rollison: Reputation management services should focus on helping businesses understand what consumers are saying and engage with reviewers by responding. Unbiased review content is a true goldmine for the brand who works with a reputation company to glean deep insights about consumer sentiment offered by consumers themselves for free.

To Woo Amazon, Cities Tackle Everything from Traffic to Housing (WSJ)
Amazon.com Inc.’s contest to find a place for its second headquarters is spurring civic leaders around the country to confront municipal problems that have confounded lawmakers and local leaders for decades.

Snapchat Content Chiefs Talk Redesign, Scripted Programming (Variety)
Snapchat’s recent redesign has received widespread criticism from users in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada, where it has thus far been made available.

Spotify Will Turn Up the Volume on Programmatic This Year (AdExchanger)
Spotify was an early mover in programmatic audio, and it’s taking that momentum into 2018. At Spotify, programmatic is part of the sales playbook. Everyone on the sales team is trained to sell programmatic inventory, even if they focus on direct-sold units.

3 Ways to Kickstart Your SEO in 2018 (Search Engine Land)
Casie Gillette: We want and need new ideas, but they often come at the expense of our old ideas — which, given the cyclical nature of SEO, shouldn’t be forgotten.

Dunkin’ Donuts Goes Back to Its Local Roots for Next-Gen Store Model (GeoMarketing)
Dunkin’ Donuts has unveiled what it’s calling its “next generation store” in the city where it opened its very first location 68 years ago with new design elements that are meant to reflect the “on-demand’ expectations of its digitally connected customers.

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Joe Zappa is the Managing Editor of Street Fight. He has spearheaded the newsroom's editorial operations since 2018. Joe is an ad/martech veteran who has covered the space since 2015. You can contact him at [email protected]