On Path to IPO, Yodle Buys Lighthouse 360 to ‘Close the Loop’
Yodle, a marketing platform for small businesses, has
announced the acquisition of LightHouse 360, a customer
relationship management (CRM) tool for dentists, in a move to tie
its customer acquisition efforts into the broader operational
infrastructure of small businesses. Yodle’s chief executive, Court
Cunningham, also told Street Fight in an interview that his company
is “strongly considering” an IPO…
Andrew Mason Out as Groupon CEO
Groupon CEO Andrew Mason was fired by the company’s board Thursday, less than 24 hours after dismal earnings sent the company’s stock price into a tailspin. The board is currently looking for a replacement, and board members Eric Lefkofsky and Ted Leonisis will serve as co-CEOs of the company until one is found…
Report: Blocking Access to Wi-Fi Could Hurt Retailers
Wi-fi connectivity may be starting to affect where consumers decide to shop, according to a new report by JiWire. The study, which surveyed users across the company’s ad-supported wi-fi network, found that one out of two mobile consumers are influenced by the availability of in-store wi-fi when deciding where to shop…
With Mobile Growing, WPP Sees Opportunity to Make DOOH Smarter
The agency’s Spafax Networks has announced a new partnership that will bring PlaceIQ’s audience data to its DOOH buying process. Like PlaceIQ’s channel partners in the mobile space, Spafax can use the latitude-longitude data associated with its inventory to target media by audience segments like “middle aged moms” or “business travelers” in vendor and geography.
LocalVox Turns to SMB Seminars to Drive Leads in New Markets
New York-based LocalVox is expanding from New York and Boston to Washington D.C. The move is a small-but-significant step in the company’s grand plan to replace legacy players like ReachLocal as the marketing platform of choice for local businesses. LocalVox’s product allows small business to publish content across their own email, social, and web properties, as well as to a host of listing sites and other media properties from a single touchpoint…
Street Fight Daily: Airbnb Eyeing Former Square COO, Nokia Opens ‘Here’
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Airbnb May Hire Former Square Exec Rabois as COO (Wall Street Journal)… Nokia Opens Up Here platform With an Eye to the Future (GigaOm)… Why Big Brands Fell Out of Love with Check-Ins (Digiday)…
Euclid Raises $17 Million to Deepen Analytics for Brick-and-Mortars
Netscape founder Marc Andreessen may think retail’s demise is inevitable, but Benchmark Capital has just made a big bet on its future. The venture firm has led a $17.3 million series B round in Euclid, a startup that uses wi-fi analytics to provide brick-and-mortar retailers with web-like reporting on in-store traffic…
Street Fight Daily: Groupon Surges, Square Avoids Sales Hires
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Groupon Surges on Expected E-Commerce Expansion (Bloomberg)… Square Is Avoiding Hiring Salespeople (Business Insider)… QuickBooks Online For iPad Isn’t A Boring Accounting App – It’s A Simple CRM (TechCrunch)…
Street Fight Daily: Groupon Acquires MashLogic, EveryBlock Could Be Sold
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Groupon Acqui-Hires MashLogic, Will Shutter Britely Plugin This weekend (PandoDaily)… EveryBlock Could Still Be Sold, Says Schiller, After Abrupt Closing of Hyperlocal Pioneer (Poynter)… After Acquiring 15 Groupon Clones, CrowdSavings Finds a Buyer for Itself (AllThingsD)…
Patch Misses 2012 Revenue Target
AOL’s network of hyperlocal sites missed the $40 million to $50 million revenue target that the company had set for last year, a miss that CEO Tim Armstrong attributed to disruption from superstorm Sandy in the fourth quarter during a Friday earnings call. The company remains committed to achieving run-rate profitability for Patch by the end of this year…
Study: 14.7 Million People Engaged ‘Locally’ with Retail Brands in Q4
A new report by the Location-Based Marketing Association and local analytics company Venuelabs looks at the amount and quality of “local” consumer interactions. As local activities like reviewing, checking in, or posting a photo become ubiquitous across platforms, the volume of location-specific (versus brand-specific) digital engagement with brick-and-mortar businesses has exploded…
Yelp Hits 100 Million Uniques as Users Shift to Mobile
Yelp reported mixed earnings on Wednesday as wider than expected losses tempered strong revenue growth in the fourth quarter. The reviews site brought in $41.2 million during the quarter, taking its annual revenue to $137.6 million for 2012. The overwhelming majority of its revenue growth came on the backs of local advertisers as brand spending remained flat…
Channeling Starbucks, FiveStars Seeks Loyalty in the Form of a Gift Card
The Mountain View, Calif., company is launching a new gift card product aimed at helping businesses transform new customers into returning customers through its POS-integrated loyalty platform. The company has piloted a co-branded gift card with a handful of small retail chains since December, and plans to open the feature to its smaller merchants with the release…
Edo Bucks Trend, Expands Into Local
As firms like Group Commerce pull out of the local market, others like Edo are moving in the opposite direction.The company, which syndicates card-linked offers to financial institutions like Ally Bank and Fifth Third, has hooked up with local reseller 2Go Media to open its network to local merchants through a simplified version of its enterprise platform…