News and Analysis

Innovation Brief: Amazon, Twitch & Facebook

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Street Fight’s Innovation Brief series aggregates and analyzes happenings from across the technology and media spheres. This week, we look at Amazon’s robotic endeavors, Twitch Paid Boost, and Facebook’s latest controversies.

Fast Brings New Headless Checkout Capabilities to Live Events

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Buyers can purchase a seller’s product in one click, directly from a Fast Checkout button on a review page, an email, or another digital avenue. That means Fast’s new headless checkout system could be a big payday for certain digital publishers and bloggers as well as live events.

Reveal Mobile Acquires OOH Location Intelligence Startup Mira

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The acquisition creates what Reveal describes as the first ad tech SaaS platform to provide attribution reports for online-to-offline, offline-to-online, and offline-to-offline marketing campaigns. The company will be bringing Mira’s entire team onboard.

Commentary

AR Impacts Local Commerce, Disrupting Home Services and Retail

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AR is emerging at a time when the physical retail world is undergoing significant transformation. Things like Amazon Go stores and the counteractive “retail as a service” movement have raised awareness and hunger for retail evolution. So AR’s retail shopping use cases fall on fertile soil.

But retail is just one way that AR intersects with local commerce. AR comes into play in another key local commerce category: home services. Innovators like Streem are bringing remote assistance to traditional service calls (think: busted pipe).

Google Antitrust: Is It Enough for Yelp?

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Mihm to Blumenthal: I’m not averse to the idea of the government regulating Google’s practices in Maps or local search, but it feels like rewarding Yelp in particular is not going to bring consumers any particular benefit, nor will it meaningfully benefit small businesses, as Elizabeth Warren seems to indicate is a primary goal of her plan.

If anything, Google has gone out of its way to help small businesses compete in its search results with the introduction of the local pack and the Venice update, whereas small businesses continue to rate Yelp as poorly as any company in tech.

LBMA Vidcast: Foursquare’s Big Acquisition, Wendy’s Teams with GasBuddy

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On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: Eleven-X + Skyhook, NCR Digital + SAFE Credit Union, Albert Heijn tries dynamic pricing, Foursquare buys Placed from Snap, GrandVisual + NCMEC finding missing persons, Wendy’s partners with GasBuddy for Memorial Day campaign.

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Google Tests DIY Local-News App, Twitter Adds New Ad Tactic for Brands

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Is Testing a New App That Would Let Anyone Publish Local News Stories… Twitter Now Lets Advertisers Sponsor Publishers’ Moments… Morgan Stanley Says Amazon’s Red-Hot Ad Biz Not a Threat to Duopoly…

Street Culture: A Culture of Growth at PacketZoom

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“Introducing [new employees] to the culture has been very important; it’s important that the people we hire are growth-oriented,” PacketZoom co-founder Chetan Ahuja says. “We want them to already be useful to the business, but their main goal is to grow and to grow with the company. They’re much more valuable that way.”

LBMA Podcast: Extreme Networks, Facebook, Daimler AG

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This Week in Location Based Marketing is a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association with Asif Khan, Rob Woodbridge & Aubriana Lopez. On the show: What3Words, Hold app, StubHub goes AR for Super Bowl, Amazon expands DASH, Clear Channel, Reebok “Get’s Pumped”, Acuity partners with Phunware.

Street Fight Daily: Benchmark’s Kalanick Suit Dismissed, IAB Releases Influencer Guidelines

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Benchmark’s Lawsuit Against Former Uber CEO Kalanick Dismissed (TechCrunch) It’s over. Benchmark’s lawsuit against former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has now been dropped, ending one of the biggest VC-founder disputes in history. Street Culture: A Culture of Growth at PacketZoom (Street Fight) “Introducing [new employees] […]

Choice Hotels Reimagines Room Service with Delivery.com Partnership

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A new partnership between Choice Hotels and delivery.com is being seen as a sign of changing times within the hospitality industry. Delivery.com is now providing a “room service-like experience” for hotel guests at Choice Hotels, allowing guests to have orders from local restaurants delivered directly to their hotel locations.

Three Candles to Light in Dark Times for Local News and Journalists

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The news about local news hasn’t been good lately. But there have been three recent positive signals helping to balance the scales in the form of a digital newsgathering tool, a new survey about trust, and the survival of an important hyperlocal network in Brooklyn.

Street Fight Daily: Brands Bet on Dynamic Ads, Inside Uber’s Espionage Operation

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Brands Bet on Smarter Ads… The Tricks and Travails of Uber’s Spies… After Folding in Print, Self Finds Audience of Over 8 Million on Snapchat…

How Major Brands Are ‘Gamifying’ the Consumer Buying Experience

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Although gamification itself is not a new marketing strategy, advancements in mobile apps and location technologies are providing brands with new opportunities to engage customers using these time-tested techniques. Here’s how six major brands are using gamification to change the consumer experience and promote loyalty.

Street Fight Daily: GoDaddy Acquires Main Street Hub, New York Times Leads Way on Loyalty

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… GoDaddy Is Acquiring Main Street Hub, Social Marketing Platform for SMBs… How the New York Times Uses Interactive Tools to Build Loyalty and Subscriptions… Here’s Why the Epidemic of Malicious Ads Grew So Much Worse Last Year…

5 Text Messaging Platforms for Businesses

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Millennials don’t want to call businesses for answers to basic questions like store hours or product availability. That’s part of the reason why click-to-call platforms have taken off in recent years. Here are five vendors with click-to-call platforms for businesses.