VP Ghaffary: Yelp Is the ‘Local Layer’ of the Internet
Mike Ghaffary, a grad school friend of CEO Jeremy Stoppelman who helped to write one of Yelp’s first advertiser contracts, now serves as the company’s vice president of business development (and will give a keynote address at Street Fight Summit West in San Francisco next month). Street Fight caught up with Ghaffary recently to discuss the relationship between content and data in local discovery, and why competitors will have a hard time “killing Yelp.”
Moving Upstream, PayPal and Square Make a Play for the Local Merchant’s POS
There’s a not-too-quiet rivalry brewing between Square and PayPal over offline payments, and this week saw the unofficial opening of an important new theatre: the SMB point of sale (POS). It’s perhaps the stickiest problem for both companies to solve in order to make payments work, and their respective announcements demonstrate a strategic skism similar to what we’ve seen in desktop computers and mobile phones..
LBMA PODCAST: Square, BlockAvenue, and PlaceIQ CEO Duncan McCall
In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan talk about rumors that Facebook is looking to purchase Waze for $1 billion. Meanwhile, Square is set to check in to Foursquare’s neighborhood; BlockAvenue launches to give your city a grade; and Unilever goes hyperlocal with its rewards program. Plus special guest Duncan McCall, CEO of PlaceIQ.
Street Fight Daily: Mason Moves On, Aruba Buys In-Door GPS Firm Meridian
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Ex-Groupon CEO Mason Moving to San Francisco to Start New Company (Reuters)… Aruba Buys Meridian Apps, Eyes ‘Indoor GPS’ Services (ZDNet)… How Google Made Maps Human, Savvy, and Monetizable (Fast Company)…
Marqeta Finds $14M in Funding as Loyalty Plays Start Thinning Out
The flood of new loyalty and payment startups that littered last summer’s newscycle has dried up, with only a handful of companies – namely, Square, Belly, FiveStars and LevelUp – making it to a meaningful second or third round of funding. Add Marqeta to that list. The maker of a branded and white-labeled prepaid loyalty card announced that it closed a $14 million series A round led by Greylock Partners this morning, and revealed that its technology underpins the Facebook Card, the social network’s most recent stab at gifting…
Street Fight Daily: Google Unveils New Maps, PayPal Takes Aim at Square
Street Fight Daily: Square Unveils New Hardware, PayPal Offers Cash for Registers
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Square Unveils Hardware for iPad Registers (New York Times)… PayPal’s Cash For Registers Tries To Outdo Square And Groupon With Its Own Bid To Rule The Register (TechCrunch)… Facebook, Waze at Odds Over Liquidation (Business Insider)…
Facebook, Waze and the Falling Cost of Mapping Technology
A lot of digital ink has been spilled about why Facebook would want to snap up Waze — namely, the company’s 40 million mobile users. But the discussions also verify the once-unthinkable reality that a startup could scale a navigation and mapping service into a billion-dollar business in five years. A number of technological trends have set the stage for Waze and other mapping and navigation startups to compete. Here’s a look at a few of them…
8 Reputation Management Platforms for Merchants
As customer review sites like Yelp, Angie’s List, and TripAdvisor proliferate, reputation management platforms are becoming an increasingly important tool in the local merchant’s arsenal. Nearly a quarter of small businesses now monitor their online reputations, according to BIA/Kelsey. Here are eight platforms that each tackle online reputation management in a slightly different way…
New Report Examines Hyperlocal Targeting on Mobile
With 133.7 million consumers, a full 52.5% of the U.S. population, owning a smartphone, it’s safe to say that the mobile platform is here to stay and growing. In a new report from Street Fight Insights, we survey the burgeoning industry of vendors that target individuals based on where they are, taking a deep dive into the technologies and strategies available for marketers…
6 Strategies for Building a Local Online Marketplace
Local marketplaces are notoriously difficult to build, and yet the rewards are significant for publishers who are successful. When done right, local marketplaces can create additional streams of revenue, and they can serve as page-view generators for the hyperlocal news sites they’re associated with. We spoke with several folks who have built marketplace products for local to get some insight…
Street Fight Daily: Hyperlocal Targeting Faces Scrutiny, New CEO at CityGrid
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… ‘Hyperlocal’ Consumer Targeting Faces Scrutiny; Senator Questions Euclid (Wall Street Journal)… Ron LaPierre CEO of CityGrid Media (Screenwerk)… Yahoo Acquires Location-based Mobile Gaming Company Loki Studios (TheNextWeb)…
LBMA PODCAST: Dwolla, Kiip, MoodMedia, and Now Founder Ben Broca
In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan talk about ISIS’s plan to bring loyalty to vending machines. Meanwhile, Dwolla closes their $16.5 million series C; Kiip powers the “sour to sweet” campaign for Sour Patch Kids; MoodMedia pinpoints you by the music your hear; Google Now! comes to the iPhone and leaves a lot to the imagination; Foursquare is about to sell your data; and PJs that tell stories. Plus special guest Ben Broca, founder of Now…
Street Fight Daily: Village Voice Editors Walk Out, Tumult at CityGrid
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Top Editors Abruptly Leave Village Voice Over Staff Cuts (New York Times)… What’s Going on at CityGrid? (Screenwerk)… Daily Voice Bankruptcy is a Setback for ‘Hyperlocal’ News (Fortune)…
10 Months After Furor, Hyperlocal News Service Journatic Presses On
In the spring of 2012, Journatic, the for-hire community news shop, was a hot property in the hyperlocal industry. But less than three months later, following a report on “This American Life” about Journatic’s practices, Tribune and several other publishers suspended all work by the local news company. Tribune has resumed some use of Journatic’s work since, and I recently went to the company’s new VP of media services, Hanke Gratteau, to find out more about how the service was faring…