Street Fight Daily: Google Positions Itself to Challenge Amazon on Voice, New Directions in Loyalty

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

Ad Buyers Say Google’s YouTube and YouTube TV Integration Will Help It Rival Amazon on Voice (Digiday)
At its I/O conference on May 8, Google took another stab at Amazon’s home assistants, announcing that people could watch YouTube and YouTube TV on forthcoming Google Assistant-powered “smart display” devices.

How Innovation Is Reshaping the Digital Loyalty Market (Street Fight)
While the number of loyalty program members continues to grow, data from the loyalty, customer engagement, and data analytics firm COLLOQUY indicates the market has slowed. However, a temporary slowdown in membership growth may be setting the stage for the next big innovation.

Waze Ads Head Suzie Reider Sets Her Sights on QSR, Retail, and Fuel (AdExchanger)
Don’t confuse Waze with its homegrown Maps product. Waze, which Google acquired in 2013, has a much different value prop.

Four Years After GateHouse, Brad Dennison Has Become a Local News Rover (Street Fight)
There’s a new nameplate in hyperlocal news publishing, and just about everything about it is boldly different, including the name—Rover. This combination digital daily and print monthly was launched in suburban Nashville last week. In this Q&A, Tom Grubisich talks with one of Rover’s architects, Brad Dennison.

You Don’t Need a Paywall If You Have Cool Ads, Outline CEO Josh Topolsky Says (Recode)
“Internet advertising is very aggressive and often bad,” Topolsky says. “For the smartest, most savvy consumers on the internet, they are blocking it or tuning it out or avoiding places that have it altogether.”

Mobile Ad Fraud Rates Double (MediaPost)
Compared to 2017, mobile ad fraud rates almost doubled, notes mobile attribution provider Adjust. Throughout the year, Adjust’s fraud prevention technology rejected 7.3% of all paid installs. 

Ad Tech Companies Become Publishers (eMarketer)
Some ad tech companies are acting like publishers, which became more evident with the recent purchase of news aggregator Digg by the ad network BuySellAds.

Uber Says Its Self-Driving Cars Could Return in Next Few Months (TechCrunch)
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi spoke briefly of what’s been going on in the world of Uber’s self-driving cars in light of the fatal accident in Tempe, Arizona in March. Khosrowshahi said Uber will bring back its self-driving cars “within the next few months, I don’t know.”

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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]