News and Analysis
Google Being Investigated for Antitrust Violations by Slew of States
More than half of US state attorneys general are investigating Google for antitrust violations, the Washington Post reported. Officials anonymously told the Post that the probes are expected to be announced on Monday.
This marks a serious escalation in mostly recent government efforts to increase regulation of the giant tech firms that have become the most powerful private enterprises in the world, squashing competition in their home industries and disrupting adjacent ones. The Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are already looking into the potentially anticompetitive power of Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple.
Klos Founders See Opportunity in Social Messaging Market
Like so many other startups, Klos is being marketed as a solution to a problem. In this case, the company’s founders see the problem as social media being inherently anti-social. Original broadcast sharing on legacy social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn is on the decline. Messaging services like WhatsApp and iMessage are incredibly popular, but they don’t help people expand their social networks. While there are existing services, like Tinder and Bumble, that combine messaging and network expansion, they almost all fall into the dating app category.
A Return to Contextual Advertising?
Digital advertising and marketing have long been positioned as “the future” of advertising. But with the rapid changes in media and information technology of the past two decades, the future has arrived. Google recently promoted the idea that “we’re now in an era where digital marketing is just marketing.” But as the industry advances and as new protective regulations around personal data privacy are introduced, it’s also possible that some of the change could involve relying more on previously established methods. Specifically, it is possible that we are on the verge of a return to contextual advertising as the dominant form of online ads.
Commentary
Making Sense of Posts in Google’s SMB Product Portfolio
“In local, most businesses do not have a transaction so Google wants to control the action,” Mike Blumenthal tells David Mihm. “If they can sell an ad, great, and if not then they take credit for a click or a call, driving directions or response to a CTA (and gather the data of those activities).”
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#SFSW16: Loyalty is Back, and It’s Big, But It’s Not Cutting-Edge
“The premise of our business is that in the past you walk into your local business and everybody knows who you are. It is a very familial relational space,” Ho said. “Our goal is to help these business owners treat every single [customer] as a unique individual. Not long from now it’s either going to be like Minority Report or like Cheers. We want it to be like Cheers.”…
#SFSW16: YP’s Biggest Competitor? SMBs’ ‘Guy’
Fragmentation is changing the local marketing industry, with smaller sellers encroaching on a space that was once reserved for large national agencies. At Street Fight Summit West, YP CEO David Krantz said the influx of competition is making it tougher to sell bigger advertising services.
Pingup Partners with Yahoo to Expand Online Booking for Local Services
Pingup, which describes itself as a “transaction platform for local services,” announced a new partnership with Yahoo this morning. The move expands Pingup’s publisher network, allowing users searching for local services on Yahoo to book an appointment on-demand through the Pingup platform.
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