News and Analysis
By Unlocking Vehicle Data, Car Rental Companies Help Build Smarter Cities
As operator of three of the most recognized brands in the industry — Avis, Budget and Zipcar — Avis Budget Group represents a mobility ecosystem of more than 11,000 locations in approximately 180 countries. The company recently partnered with the connected-car data firm Otonomo to manage its connected cars on Otonomo’s automotive data services platform. Otonomo will help ABG derive insights from its large connected vehicle fleet, including anonymizing, standardizing, and delivering data from Toyota, Ford, Peugeot and GM vehicles.
The deal between ABG and Otonomo is expected to generate more than 4 billion road miles of data this year, and 7 billion road miles of data by 2020, with much of that data being used for predictive maintenance, smart city planning, and streamlining of the rental process.
5 Business Models for On-Demand Delivery
In the on-demand food delivery vertical alone, revenue is expected to reach $94 billion this year. Other verticals, like beauty, parking, health, shipping, and marijuana, are seeing significant gains, as well. Although the space is maturing, investors are still seeing great growth opportunities. Any number of on-demand delivery startups has the potential to take over the space if it continues to grow as its current pace.
To understand where that growth might occur, we need to take a step back and examine which business models are proving most successful in the on-demand delivery space and how startups are implementing those business models for financial gain.
How Retailers Are Reaching Back-to-School Shoppers
It’s that time of the year. As summertime comes to an end, parents around the country have started filling up shopping carts with pencils, notebooks, and binders. Families in the U.S. are expected to spend an average of $696 on back-to-school supplies this year, the highest amount ever recorded by the National Retail Federation.
Back-to-school shopping has become an important event for retailers like Target, Walmart, and Office Depot. While ecommerce is king at other times of the year, parents shopping for their kids’ back-to-school supplies are just as likely to shop in-store as they are online.
Commentary
Why Hasn’t a Killer App Emerged for Finding Local Events?
The local events space is still waiting on its ubiquitous app. There’s Yelp for restaurants. And Uber/Lyft for getting to and from. But there’s not yet a go-to for the crux of the night – the thing you do when you’re out on the town.
How Cisco’s Meraki Became the Largest Vendor of Bluetooth Beacon Gateways
While Meraki’s routers have long had the ability to broadcast iBeacon packets, in October they released a software upgrade which enables API access to these radios, activating a major new feature. Now customers can use their Wi-Fi access points to monitor beacons from third party vendors.
Under Pressure, Local TV Advertising Still Shows Lots of Opportunity
Local TV ad spending is set to take a big hit next year, projected to decrease at a double-digit pace after an election and Olympics year. Nonetheless, local TV represents a solid opportunity for smart media and marketing tech companies, as TV remains U.S. consumers’ primary time-sink.
Latest Posts
How the Google My Business API Changes the Local Ecosystem
The move is a good thing for business owners but even more so for Google itself, which in providing a better means to gather data from business owners will improve the freshness and accuracy of its data.
Case Study: For Lead Generation, Cleaning Firm Prefers Emails to Website Clicks
Despite recent successes with mobile advertising, Herminio Gomes of Sharp Cleaning estimates he currently spends just 4% of his marketing budget on digital channels. The rest is divided between direct mailers, newspaper ads, flyers, and commissions.
Street Fight Daily: Google Changes Desktop Search Ads, Yahoo to Start Reaching Out to Bidders
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Makes Desktop Search Look More Mobile-ish to Milk More Shopping-Ads Cash (Recode)… Yahoo Said to Start Approaching Possible Bidders As Soon As Monday (Bloomberg)… What Is Groupon’s Real Value to Alibaba? (Crain’s Chicago Business)…
Location Data Management 101: Seeing the Bigger Picture
Many brands make the mistake of viewing location data as nothing more than plumbing for their local listings — or a component of a listing management strategy. But location data management is much bigger than listing management and data syndication.
Street Culture: DoorDash Aiming to Constantly Improve Both Product and People
Translating the desire to support business owners with successful on-demand functionality relies heavily on DoorDash’s 200 core employees. In 2015, the company expanded from three markets to 22, and CEO Tony Xu says he expects the company to double in size in 2016.
LBMA Podcast: Amazon, The Grammys, Parkhub, and Euclid Analytics
On the show: Gemalto launches LinqUs IoT platform; KeyDuino means fist bumping your car to unlock it; MicroChippy and Bubbledogs create a pop-up Canine Cafe; ParkHub & Verifone parked cars at SuperBowl 50; Verve launches self-serve location platform for SMBs.
Street Fight Daily: Yelp Data Now Available to Marketers, Ads Coming to Facebook Messenger
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yelp Agrees to License Its Data to Sprinklr, All the Better for Marketers to Understand Their Consumers (AdAge)… Facebook Plans to Put Ads in Messenger (TechCrunch)… Yahoo Warns of Industry-Wide ‘Pause’ in Mobile Growth for 2016 (VentureBeat)…
New Alignable Rankings Shed Light on What SMBs Really Think of Tech Vendors
Alignable, a social networking platform for small business owners, has released its first quarterly SMB Trust Index which shows what small businesses think of a variety of small business technology brands. The index features a Net Promoter Score (NPS), which ranks products and services by user
Survey: SMBs Beefing Up Local Marketing — And Favoring Free Social Over Websites
More and more small and medium-sized businesses are upping their digital marketing game — even though they still don’t have a clear understanding of the relative ROI of various channels. According to Thrive Analytics’ Local Pulse Report, 42% of SMBs are planning to boost their local marketing budgets in 2016.
Street Fight Daily: Google Fresh Expands to Grocery Delivery, Nextdoor Arrives in Europe
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Launches Grocery Delivery Service in San Francisco and Los Angeles (TechCrunch)… Nextdoor Launches in Europe (The Next Web)… Report: Apps Convert Better for Retailers than Mobile Web or Desktop (Marketing Land)…
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