News and Analysis
Retailers Use AI to Mine Social Data for Back-to-School Trends
Students across the country are returning to the classroom this month — some for the first time in more than a year. While early indications show strong late-summer back-to-school sales, retailers aren’t leaving anything up to chance. Widespread confusion around health policies, safety protocols, and required supplies that can vary by school are leading retailers to rely on social media and artificial intelligence to collect information on emerging themes and trends.
G2 Brings Yelp’s Peer Advice Model to Software Reviews
G2 is a software marketplace that publishes reviews from actual software users, rather than relying on industry analysis. The company recently raised $157 million in Series D funding from investors including Hubspot Ventures, Salesforce Investors, and LinkedIn.
Idomoo Launches Interactive Video Platform
Could highly personalized interactive video become the primary way that businesses communicate with customers in the future? That’s what the team at Idomoo is betting on. The company is launching a fully open, enterprise-grade platform called Living Video that will enable businesses to automatically update videos in real-time based on context and user input.
Commentary
The Blind Spot in Facebook’s Vision of Privacy
Insofar as Facebook’s pivot to privacy fails to reward its users for the data that has made it one of the world’s most powerful and profitable companies, I see it as a modest change that is more reactive than proactive, more inevitable than forward-thinking. It is likely that Facebook is only beginning to lay out its moves on privacy, and more ambitious changes may lie ahead. But for now, when it comes to the most pressing, fundamental ethical challenges that are inciting political fervor and increasing the likelihood that serious regulation of Big Tech is on the way, Zuckerberg is dragging his feet. With visionaries like Lanier and Zuboff raising public awareness about Facebook’s business model, the truth may just catch up with him.
Things Not Strings: Google’s New Hotel Profiles Exemplify Its Approach to Entities
Google’s Knowledge Graph ambitions are expanding to include obviating heavy reliance on secondary sources like Wikipedia and being able instead to classify and cross-reference information as a native, self-sustaining activity on web pages themselves. That’s what makes a recent patent filing different from the evidence of the Knowledge Graph we’ve already seen in the wild.
While this more ambitious way of surfacing information about entities is not yet standard, in researching Google’s new interface for hotels, I think I’m seeing evidence of a real-world example.
LBMA Vidcast: Octopus Ads in Ubers and Lyfts, Walmart and Google Team Up on Voice
On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: Neiman Marcus + SalesFloor, Octopus ads in Uber & Lyft, Cleveland Cavaliers + Aramark use Apple business chat for food orders, CVS + Shipt, Snapchat testing “Status” feature, Walmart + Google voice ordering.
Latest Posts
Local Marketing on Alexa? The Real Estate Industry Gives It a Shot
There are almost 40 real estate “skills” currently listed in Alexa’s directory. This is greater than those related to lawyers/attorneys, doctors/dentists, and a host of other SMB categories, and overall there doesn’t yet appear to be much adoption of voice technology at the local business level.
JCPenney’s Outgoing Mobile Chief: Digital Integration Vital for Retail Brands
“The most exhilarating thing about being in mobile is that it’s ever-changing. The traditional way of doing retail is dying; you have to reinvent yourself to stay relevant,” James Meeks, former head of mobile at JCPenney, told Street Fight.
Street Fight Daily: Yelp Fights Companies Soliciting Reviews, Snap Reckons with Post-IPO Disaster
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yelp Increasingly Cracking Down on ‘Review Solicitation’… Snapchat Is Having a Crisis of Confidence. So Are Investors… Postmates Launches Grocery Service, Scheduled Deliveries, and Revamped App…
Sponsored Content: The Real Meaning of Local Presence Management
If just one piece of a brand’s local presence is not being managed well, then in-store traffic can dip. That’s why consistent monitoring of online data across websites, mobile applications, and forums is necessary for businesses long after they’ve initially taken control of their digital presence.
Why Carrier Data Is the Key to Unlocking Mobile Verification
Brands like P&G are placing new demands on agencies and media providers for increased transparency and accountability, which in turn has led to significant advances in areas like viewability. The next battleground is clearly verifying the data accuracy of the underlying ingredients – namely the quality of data used for targeting and measurement.
Street Fight Daily: Salesforce & Google Partner on Analytics, MarTech Budgets to See Big Growth
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Salesforce and Google to Integrate Analytics 360 with Marketing and Sales Clouds… MarTech Budgets Projected to See Double-Digit Growth Next Year… Lyft COO Rex Tibbens Is Stepping Down After More Than 2 Years…
Where Local Agencies Help Brands Most
About a quarter of multi-location brands use local media agencies to help manage and evaluate their local digital advertising and marketing programs, according to Street Fight’s latest survey. There’s a modest correlation between using agencies and marketing effectiveness, and the agencies seem to help the most with TV and display advertising.
SMB Index: Big Gains for Local Stocks in October
After gaining 2.1% in September, the SCP SMB Index experienced a scorching start to Q3 gaining 6.8% in October, outpacing all other major indices we track. For the first time, Square cracked the Top 5 Constituents list after climbing 29% in October.
Street Fight Daily: Amazon Undercuts Rivals Ahead of Holidays, Facebook Expands Messenger Ads
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Discounts Other Sellers’ Products As Holidays Approach… More Brands Will Be Able to Send Sponsored Messages on Facebook Messenger… Uber’s Business Has Recovered After #DeleteUber, But Lyft Made Lasting Gains…
Openings and New Hires at Infogroup, Vistar Media, Unacast
Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest openings and new hires in this dynamic industry. This week’s edition includes moves and new openings at Functionize, Emissary, X-Mode and dataPlor.
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem