Street Fight Daily: Groupon Sells TicketMonster Stake, Verve Hires New CEO
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Groupon Sells Controlling Stake in Korean Site Ticket Monster for $360 Million (Recode)… Verve Mobile Taps Acxiom’s Stirratt As CEO (MediaPost)… ‘Mobilegeddon’ Could Be Bad News For 40% of Top Websites (USA Today)…
Microsoft Is a Sleeping Giant in Local — But Its Window May Be Closing
What’s the most important dataset for a small business? More often than not, it’s a customer list. A batch of new relationship management systems have popped to make sense of customer data for small merchants in recent years, but the technology with the biggest market share isn’t what you might think…
Street Fight Daily: Nokia Weighs Sale of Maps, GoDaddy Keeps Buying Startups
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Nokia Weighs Sale of Maps Business to Focus on Networks (Bloomberg)… GoDaddy Acquires Marketplace Startup Elto To Expand Its Services For Web Pros (TechCrunch)… Amazon, Google and More Are Drawn to Home Services Market (New York Times)…
Street Fight Daily: Apple Maps Adds TripAdvisor, Crowdfunding Local News
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Apple Maps Now Includes Hotel Reviews From TripAdvisor and Booking.com (MacRumors)… What Works For Crowdfunding Local News (Medium)… SeatGeek Raises $62 Million In A Series C Led By Technology Crossover Ventures (TechCrunch)…
Can Amazon Bring One-Click Purchasing to Home Services? Here’s What Experts Think
Earlier this week, Amazon launched its widely-anticipated Home Services marketplace where you can book plumbers, painters and other professionals. We caught up with a handful of small business experts to breakdown the news and handicap Amazon’s chances of transitioning its dominant position in ecommerce to a complex and scattered service landscape…
Street Fight Daily: Groupon Launches Stores, Starcom Measures TV
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Groupon Quietly Launches Groupon Stores, a Marketplace for Its $2 Billion Goods Business (Recode)… SMG Launches Addressable TV Measurement Tool (MediaPost)… Amazon Dash Aims to Be a Push-Button Substitute for the Supply Run (New York Times)…
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Messages Businesses, Amazon’s Angie’s List Killer
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Do Facebook Users Really Want To Chat With Businesses? (Fortune)… Amazon’s On-Demand Services Marketplace Launches Monday (TechCrunch)… Google Launches Major Push To Get Local Businesses Online, Improve Data (Search Engine Land)…
Local Startups Need to Focus Less on Consumers, More on Businesses
Founders mistakenly interpret the investment thesis of the local technology industry — the billions in local spending moving onto digital networks — and see a chance to rethink the way we buy before fully considering the vast changes occurring in the way the supply side of the market operates.
How Brands and Publishers Are Thinking About Beacons
“The data and analytics is important but in the end, it has to be about improving the customer experience first,” said Jennifer Bordner, marketing manager at Old Navy, during a panel at SXSW Interactive in Austin Tuesday. “What can technology do that feels more natural than an extra burden. In the end, it’s about bridging that gap between the physical and digital [experience] in a way that feels natural.”