WPP Mobile Exec: Location Already ‘Not Special’ in Ad Tech
In a conversation this week, Michael Lieberman, chief executive North America at WPP’s Joule, discussed the copy-cat syndrome among mobile-local ad tech, how brands have ditched geo-fencing, and why influencing consumers’ impulse purchases might be the next big growth market for digital marketing dollars…
Street Fight Daily: Amazon’s New Wallet, Linkedin Buys Bizo
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Passbook Redux: Amazon Copies Apple’s Underwhelming Digital Wallet (Pando)… LinkedIn Makes Another Deal, Buying Bizo (New York Times)… For Its First Google Glass Effort, EBay Adapts Its RedLaser Product Finder App (TechCrunch)…
Yelp, Foursquare, and the Downsides of Mobile-First
In an era where the “mobile-first” motto borders on dogma for tech companies, the virtues of the desktop internet often are overlooked. While Yelp continues to benefit from desktop search, mobile-first Foursquare has struggled to sustain the explosive growth it saw early on — partly because its influence on the web ecosystem remains relatively weak…
Meet Cups: Endless Coffee for $45 a Month
The third biggest coffee chain in New York isn’t a chain at all. It’s Cups, an Israeli app that wants to turn the city’s independent coffee shops into Netflix-style subscription service. The app offers subscribers unlimited coffee, tea, or espresso at a growing number of small coffee shops across Manhattan and Brooklyn…
Order Ahead, Confusion at Counter: Square’s New App, and the Problem of Leading From Behind
A clumsy experience with Square’s new app points to a deeper challenge facing the tech industry as it takes aim at the way we buy and sell goods in the real-world: technology companies, in all their glory, can only lead from behind. As companies like Square look to not only automate existing behaviors, but introduce new ones, the gatekeepers to the future of retail are on the main streets and in the malls across America.
Designing a New Value Proposition for Consumer Location Data
In a paper published earlier this month, a group of researchers tried to put a price tag on the personally identifiable information that flows from our mobile devices. The results shine a light on the unique challenges facing companies interested in mining location data, and the divergent paths of two tech companies that have built businesses around that information…
Why Retail Will Face the Same Fate as the Media Industry
Jeremy Rifkin, the prolific author who has served as an advisor to a number of world leaders, believes that the astronomical investments in Uber and Airbnb signal the breaking of a long-held “firewall” that kept the transformative effects of the Internet contained to the virtual world. Here Rifkin discusses why a small reduction in margins could kill traditional retail…
As Home Services Market Heats Up, Handybook COO Sees Big Opportunity
Last month, Revolution, the venture firm helmed by Case as well as Groupon chairman Ted Leonisis, led a $30 million investment in Handybook, a company that helps people book housecleaners and other home service providers. Street Fight caught up with Umang Dua, co-founder of HandyBook, to talk about the company’s evolving competitive set and the growing speculation around Uber’s valuation…
POS Startup Shows Cashiers Pictures of Customers Who Check-in
Revel Systems, a San Francisco-based company that makes point-of-sale software, will now notify businesses when someone has checked-in to their venue on Yelp or Foursquare. The feature offers a way to help businesses take a more proactive approach to engaging a vocal minority of users who actively share their opinions…
In OpenTable Deal, Signs of Deeper Convergence in Travel and Local
Two recent acquisitions by Priceline and TripAdvisor offer an early look into a logic that could drive a more comprehensive consolidation of the travel and local technology sectors. Many of the structures built to help visitors navigate new cities — and implicitly for marketers to reach tourists — might quickly become obsolete…
At Indochino, A Retail Model Built to Order
When the founders of Indochino, a startup that sells custom suits online, began to drum up strategies to enter brick-and-mortar retail, they found some surprising fat in the model: the store itself. What they came up with in response is an ephemeral alternative to offline selling that draws on some of the flexibility of ecommerce while retaining the experience of a physical presence…
What Booker’s New Partnership Says About GrubHub’s Future
Booker has announced a new partnership with Como to use the firm’s technology to allow businesses to instantly generate a customized consumer-facing mobile application with full booking capability. The move offers an insight into how back-office software companies could undercut commerce companies like Grubhub…
When the ‘Popup’ Store Sticks Around
Retailers from art galleries to apparel manufacturers have started to rethink their sprawling storefronts. Instead, companies have turned to smaller, more specialized locations that that can adapt to declining store revenues while addressing some new opportunities in selling to a connected consumer…
At Tesla, a Peek Into Retail On-Demand
The company has developed a retail and marketing strategy aimed at getting people into one of its three fully electric models regardless of whether they can afford, or even are interested in buying, a luxury car. The model draws on some of the work of the legendary Apple’s Ron Johnsonas well as the emerging phenomenon of on-demand technologies such as Uber….
To Wait or Wait Not: The Changing Dynamics of Eating Out
In New York, a growing number of the city’s most popular eateries have decided to eschew reservations, in yet another example of how local technology is affecting the restaurant industry. Now startup NoWait has developed an app to improve the waitlist experience for both restaurants and diners…