Uber and Foursquare Co-Founders Lead $15M Investment in Dining App Reserve
Expa, the startup accelerator founded by Uber co-founder Garrett Camp and Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai, has led a $15 million venture investment in Reserve. The round included a number of celebrity investors including actors Jon Favreau and Jared Leto as well as rapper Will.i.am…
Study: 6 of 10 Shoppers Engage With Beacon Messaging
A new study shows that 60% of shoppers open and engage with beacon-triggered content, and 30% of shoppers redeem beacon-triggered offers at the point of purchase. Another 73% of shoppers surveyed said that beacon-triggered content and offers increased the likelihood that they would make a purchase during their store visit…
Holiday Shoppers Will Move Between Online and Offline More Than Ever Before
In two new studies, the Gannett-owned digital marketing company G/O Digital took a look at the capabilities and offerings that will drive shopper behavior during the holidays for national and smaller retailers respectively. According to one, 84% of online shoppers said they planned to use an online channel to help decide where to shop before purchasing a gift in store at a small business…
Former Apple Geo Exec Launches Curbside, An App for In-Store Pickup
Curbside, a new company founded by the former head of Apple’s geo team, Jaron Waldman, launched a mobile commerce app yesterday in San Francisco that allows users to find products that are in stock at multiple stores in their area, purchase them with their mobile device and then pick them up at the location without ever getting out of their car…
After Spinoff, ReachLocal Founders Relaunch ClubLocal as Serviz
Late last year, ReachLocal founders Michael Kline and Zorik Gordon parted ways with the company and spun off a still-nascent local commerce project, ClubLocal, that both helped develop. Today, the long-time executives have relaunched the project as Serviz, an application that builds on many of the services core functionality….
SMBs Now Spend More Than 1/4 of Marketing Budgets on Digital Media
A new report released by Borrell Associates paints a rosy picture for the immediate future of local marketing — as long as the industry can overcome a few barriers. The report, which drew from a survey of over 2,000 small businesses, found that they now spend more than a quarter of their budgets on digital media with robust growth in the social media and mobile advertising sectors…
Yellow Pages Publisher Acquires LocalVox
TBC Holdings, the parent company of The Berry Company, announced earlier today the purchase of NYC-based LocalVox Media. LocalVox, which provides a wide range of marketing software platforms designed specifically for local and hyperlocal marketing, sees the deal as an opportunity to become the go-to app for hyperlocal marketers from coast to coast…
Macy’s Expands Shopkick Beacons to Stores Across the Country
Macy’s just made a big bet on beacons — the proximity messaging technology widely hailed as a key ingredient in the future of retail. The company says it plans to expand its partnership with the Silicon Valley-based Shopkick from a small pilot in the retailer’s flagship stores in New York and San Francisco to a national roll out that will include over 4,000 beacons in Macy’s locations across the US.
How a Pivot and Rebrand Set Aussie Company Local Measure Back on Course
Nine months ago, the Australian-based Roamz ditched its consumer business, rebranding as Local Measure to focus on a social analytics product for brands. Within five weeks of its launch, the startup signed up more than 200 companies, including Australian airline Qantas. Street Fight caught up with Local Measure VP Americas Ian Michael Farkas to talk about the company’s new direction and the company’s plan to aggressively expand across the U.S…
First Data, a Payment Processing Giant, Looks Beyond the Swipe
The largest payment processing company in the U.S. is officially in the marketing business. Last week, First Data Ventures, the payment processing giant’s venture wing, announced a partnership and strategic investment with social marketing platform LocalVox — the latest in a string of investments meant to help the payment processing giant enter new markets…