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
Two Mobile Marketing Studies Sketch Location Data’s Role in Cross-Channel Measurement
The reports released last week by industry organizations provide useful advice on mobile marketing tactics and using location data. Both studies point to the need to apply integrated, cross-channel measurement techniques, and to use location data for targeting, customer segmentation, and attribution.
Latest Posts
LiveIntent President: Local Publishers Need to Leverage ‘Gold Mine’ of Email Newsletters
Advertising network LiveIntent has 1,300 publisher clients, including Hearst, New York Times, Washington Post and ESPN. Through these relationships, it can target 130 million unique visitors. We caught up with the company’s president, Jason Kelly, to talk about how local publishers can compete with social-media platforms for ad revenue.
What Designing an ‘OS for Restaurants’ Really Requires
When you look at the restaurant tech stack, there are clearly solutions, software, applications that should play nicely with each other, but the larger players have purposefully walled off their gardens. The next multi-billion-dollar company in this space will identify the mission-critical pieces of technology in the stack, and own them.
Street Fight Daily: Search Engine Jelly Relaunches, How Foursquare Predicted Chipotle’s Sales Drop
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… With Relaunch, Jelly Makes Another Run at Q&A-Style ‘Social Search’ (Search Engine Land)… How Foursquare Knew Before Almost Anyone How Bad Things Were for Chipotle (Washington Post)… Google Is Reportedly Building an All-in-One Travel App Called Trips (The Next Web)…
How Time Out Plans to Strengthen Its Vertical Offerings With Ecommerce
At last week’s LOCALCON conference in London, Time Out’s Russ Cohn, Zenchef’s Xavier Zeitoun, and FreshLime’s Bob Barnes discussed the impact of vertical approaches on local marketing. We followed up with Cohn again after the conference to learn more about how the publisher is working to become a comprehensive booking platform.
Street Fight Daily: Facebook’s Mobile Advertising Dominance, Is This the Year for Beacons in Retail?
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Cements Status as a Mobile Juggernaut with $4.2 Billion in Ad Revenue (Mashable)… Where Do Beacons Fit in the Retail Sensor Landscape? (Marketing Land)… Pinterest’s Plans for World Domination (Business Insider)…
Moving App Zootly Wants to Make Your Relocation On-Demand
Launched in 2015, the on-demand moving app connects anyone who needs a mover or delivery with a professional mover in minutes. Whether it’s for moving a couch, a whole home or even getting some big purchases home from a day of shopping, the idea is that you can get a van or a truck and some movers when and where the need arises.
6 Local Directories Every VSB Should Be On
Consumers are increasingly going online to research local services and products, but for very small businesses (VSBs), this trend is becoming a problem. Fifty-nine percent of VSBs still don’t have websites, with owners often citing perceived cost and lack of technical expertise as reasons why they haven’t made their way online. For business owners who […]
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