Street Fight Daily: Google’s Mobile-First Indexing, Simpli.fi Launches Nationwide Solution

TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING AND MEDIA

Ready or Not, Google’s Mobile-First Indexing Is Here (Search Engine Land)
Google is now using a mobile-first index based on how devices crawl the web. It’s a radical change from the old desktop-centric approach. And the change has major ramifications for SEOs, according to Alexis Sanders, technical SEO account manager at Merkle.

Are Holiday Campaigns Launching Too Late in the Season? (Street Fight)
Black Friday has historically been seen as the official kickoff to the holiday shopping season, but new research from the data solutions company Lotame and the digital intelligence firm Jumpshot indicates that consumer interest actually peaks almost one month earlier. Retailers that wait until late fall to launch their holiday campaigns could be missing out on sales.

Localized Programmatic Platform Simpli.fi Goes National (MediaPost)
The programmatic advertising platform Simpli.fi, which works primarily in localized ads, is launching a national connected TV/over-the-top video ad solution. The company is calling the new solution a “significant expansion” of its capabilities.

LION Loses Director DeRienzo to Hearst, but ‘Indie’ Summit Doesn’t Miss a Beat (Street Fight)
To find out what the Summit of Local Independent Online News Publishers accomplished, I went to longtime journalist Steve Beatty, who was editor and CEO of the award-winning, investigative website The Lens in New Orleans for eight years before joining LION as a consultant last January and who, with DeRienzo’s departure, has been named interim director.

The Trade Desk Rolls Out Its Unified ID to Take On the Walled Gardens (AdWeek)
The Trade Desk, a publicly listed ad-tech company with a market capitalization of more than $5 billion, is rolling out its own audience ID solution with several players also participating in its debut, a move that means there are now three such offerings on the market.

‘Google a Decade Ago’: Buyers Have Gripes About Amazon Advertising (Digiday)
For a $3 billion ad business, with Citibank projecting it to reach $50 billion in the next decade, Amazon is still failing at many of the basics, according to ad buyers, with common complaints around slow and rudimentary tools and dashboards, case studies and robust sales support for buyers.

Facebook Is Radically Redesigning Messenger (CNBC)
Facebook is rolling out a revamped version of its chat app Messenger that simplifies its user interface. Messenger, which now has 1.3 billion users per month, previously had nine different tabs, while the new version has only three.

Apple’s Tim Cook Blasts Silicon Valley Over Privacy Issues (Washington Post)
Apple chief executive Tim Cook on Wednesday warned the world’s most powerful regulators that the poor privacy practices of some tech companies, the ills of social media and the erosion of trust in his own industry threaten to undermine “technology’s awesome potential” to address challenges such as disease and climate change.