Steven Jacobs | Street Fight

News & Analysis

Is Yelp’s Slowing Growth a Function of Mobile’s Adolescence?

June 18, 2015June 25, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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The apparent slowdown in Yelp’s growth does not necessarily reflect the value of the company to consumers or advertisers. Instead, it exposes the growing pains of the mobile ecosystem.

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The Connected Local Economy: A New Way to Understand Innovation in Local

June 10, 2015September 8, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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As a new generation of local technology companies approach the public markets, it’s critical for us to agree on what “local” actually means today — and how that differs from the its definition a decade ago.

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With New Software, Apple Looks to Bring Together Local Search and Commerce

June 9, 2015June 11, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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Apple showed off updates to its three operating systems Monday, announcing improvements to Apple Pay, Maps and Passbook that have implications for the local search and commerce sectors…

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Why Local Search Is the Key to Groupon’s Turnaround

May 26, 2015May 27, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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As Groupon look to wean the company off an increasingly challenging email marketing strategy and reposition it as a go-to marketplace, the Chicago-based company has invested considerably in building the infrastructure to compete for the hundreds of millions of local shoppers who pass through Google each day…

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5 Hot Startups Connecting the Local Economy

May 19, 2015May 21, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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It’s not just big box stores and ecommerce sites that are impacting our malls and main streets: the web has started to reinvent the very systems that help us find, buy and get on our hands on goods and service for sale in the real world. Here are five startups that want to help better coordinate our local economies…

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Verizon Now Owns an Ad Tech Company — Here’s What It Means for Local

May 14, 2015May 14, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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We caught up with a handful of ad tech executives to breakdown the news and evaluate the potential impact of the a Verizon-AOL tie-up on the mobile, and particularly, local ad tech sector.

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Report: More Than Half of Mobile Location Data is Inaccurate

May 14, 2015May 14, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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A new report from Thinknear suggests that mobile’s data problem is only getting worse — at least when it comes to location data…

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GoDaddy Is Changing Its Business — But Investors Worry the Change Isn’t Fast Enough

May 13, 2015May 22, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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Five weeks after going public, and Blake Irving’s turnaround at GoDaddy appears to be working. But investors remain worried that the transitions is not happening fast enough.

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Centro Launches Programmatic DSP to Put Mobile and Desktop Inventory in One Place

May 13, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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The veteran media management firm has rolled out a new demand-side platform that brings together its core desktop private exchanges with SiteScout, the mobile DSP that the company acquired in 2013.

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Pinterest SMB Chief: 2 of 3 Businesses on Site Have a Physical Store

May 12, 2015May 12, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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We recently caught up with Joel Meek to talk about how Pinterest is connecting consumer behavior form online to offline and why he thinks ecommerce is the next big growth area for small businesses on social media…

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Yelp Reportedly Explores a Sale — Could Priceline Be a Fit?

May 8, 2015May 22, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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Yelp may be on the auction block. In addition to the usual suspects, one less likely company stands out as a potential candidate: Priceline Group, the new owner of OpenTable.

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Banjo Raises $100M to Put Your Tweet (and More) on the Map

May 7, 2015May 12, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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Don’t look now, but location data analytics might actually be turning into a big business. Banjo, a Las Vegas-startup that got its start helping brands analyze location data in social media streams, has raised $100 million in a series D round of funding led by Softbank.

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Groupon Tries to Move Beyond Reputation for Discounts

May 6, 2015May 6, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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At six years old, Groupon is younger than its earnings report would suggest. It’s first quarter, which saw the sale of a cornerstone asset in Asia and a continued reboot at home, captures the clutter of a surprisingly large business in transition…

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Yelp Learns the Hard Way: Small Talk Matters When Selling to SMBs

April 29, 2015May 12, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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Yelp is off to a rocky start in 2015. Sluggish user growth and a botched sales reorganizations led to a massive sell-off Wednesday evening.

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GrubHub CEO Thinks Data — Not Content — Is the Future of Restaurant Discovery

April 29, 2015May 8, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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Investors sold off shares of GrubHub Thursday on slimmer profits, but the rest of the metrics look solid. Meanwhile, CEO Matt Maloney says the company wants to put its data about hundreds of millions of orders to work to help pick your next meal.

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The Secret to Nextdoor’s Billion-Dollar Valuation: Friction

April 29, 2015May 12, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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By making the on-boarding process more difficult, Nextdoor was able to ensure the local social network had a quality that was much more important, says Dan Clancy, VP of product and engineering.

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Signpost Raises $20.5M to Bring CRM to Brick-and-Mortar

April 28, 2015May 22, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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For years, startups have talked about creating a central database for a brick-and-mortar business’s customer activity. Now, a handful of investors are betting that the New York-based Signpost has the answer.

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How Brick-and-Mortar Brands are Using the Apple Watch

April 27, 2015May 8, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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The new device has received mixed-to-positive reviews from experts. But, like the iPhone, many believe its portability and accessibility will make it materially important for local tech….

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3 Trends Marketers Need to Know About Location-based Advertising

April 23, 2015May 8, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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Location-based advertising has exploded in recent years as brick-and-mortar brands shift digital and traditional budgets to mobile. The result has fueled the growth of one of the quickest moving sectors in an already chaotic ad tech industry…

News & Analysis

The Secret to Success in Local: Saying No

April 22, 2015May 22, 2015 by Steven Jacobs

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Sometimes, openness and opportunism lead to success for startups. But more often than not, it’s as much about the opportunities a company declines than than those it pursues, that determines whether company succeeds or fails.