News and Analysis

online privacy

Apple Takes Advantage of Facebook’s Foul Play to Make a Privacy Statement

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Not only did Facebook’s “Research” app, which paid 13- to 35-year-old users $20/month to access their search history, emails, and private messages, set off every imaginable alarm on the this-will-look-bad-when-the-exposé-comes-out PR radar (one of the world’s most powerful corporations must be lacking one of those), but the app also blatantly violated the terms of Apple’s Enterprise Developer Program, which proscribes distributing apps to consumers. It probably didn’t help that Facebook was searching tweens’ data for dirt on its competitors. 

Privacy, Poor Management, and Sex Scandals Can’t Touch the Duopoly’s Ad Growth—Yet

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It will likely take a significant downturn in spending or overall economic well-being for Big Tech to feel some major financial pain. And while great for Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple, that’s got to be concerning for industry watchdogs wondering whether these businesses are too entrenched in digital search, advertising, and commerce to be challenged—because the past year was not hot for Silicon Valley, and yet the presses keep printing dollars.

Williams-Sonoma Sues Amazon, Underscoring War Over E-Commerce Monopolization

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Foreshadowing a battle over Amazon’s overwhelming control of e-commerce, Williams-Sonoma filed a lawsuit against Amazon in the final days of 2018, charging that the retail juggernaut used its market power to copy the furniture maker’s products and squeeze it out of the market.

Commentary

Why Attributes and Identities Matter in Local Search

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Google continues to remind businesses that location data is the foundation of their brands. The question is whether your business is taking advantage of the opportunities Google is creating to use location data to build your brand.

Bypassing the Hurdles to Bring Programmatic to SMB Advertisers

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SMB advertisers care about reaching consumers, not the nitty gritty of technology covered in the ad trades. Local media companies and smaller agencies should focus on how programmatic technology helps them sell that outcome, rather than get stuck selling the technology itself.

Scaling the Neighborhood: A Community Focus for Local Services

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So far, digital services, even those focused on local, have done more to atomize local communities than unite them, training us to rely on anonymous resources for the information and recommendations we used to get from our friends and neighbors.

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Groupon Replaces CEO, Slack Partners with Lyft and Foursquare

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Groupon Replaces CEO Eric Lefkofsky with COO Rich Williams (Recode)… Slack’s Newest Feature Lets You Call a Lyft (Fast Company)… The Artist Formerly Known as Ecommerce (Venture Inside)…

Case Study: Restaurant Group Takes a Data-Driven Approach to Email Marketing

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Data is changing the way large restaurant groups cater to their highest-value customers. Richard Sandoval Restaurants, the upmarket restaurant group with more than 35 locations worldwide, is looking for more strategic ways to use data for customer retention and acquisition. It has started harnessing its email database to make more data-driven decisions using tools like customer analytics and marketing platform Venga.

Constant Contact CEO Touts ‘Distribution Benefits’ After $1.1 Billion Acquisition by Endurance

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Endurance International Group, which operates a stable of small business-oriented services, has acquired email marketing giant Constant Contact, in a transaction valued at $1.1. billion. Constant Contact will become the largest brand under the Endurance umbrella. “It’s taking our mission further by getting broader distribution. That’s the number-one rationale for the acquisition,” said Constant Contact CEO Gail Goodman.

Street Fight Daily: Google’s Drones to Hit Skies by 2017, Apple’s New Indoor Mapping App

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Plans to Deliver Packages with Drones by 2017 (Business Insider)… Apple’s ‘Indoor Survey’ App Maps Venues Using Radio Frequencies (The Next Web)… Amazon to Open First Brick-and-Mortar Bookstore (Wall Street Journal)…

#SFSNYC VIDEO: Booker CEO on the Tricky Process of Expanding into New Local Verticals

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Booker CEO Josh McCarter opened his Street Fight Summit keynote address with a question that’s on the minds of many small business solutions providers: “How do you take a system that’s designed for one vertical and take it across more categories?” Factoring in the differing needs of various service-based businesses makes that question even more complex. But given the size of what McCarter termed the “local service commerce” opportunity, answering it could be tremendously lucrative.

How Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Uses Quality Journalism to Pay the Bills

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Like other dailies, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has taken big hits in advertising and distribution revenue on the print side, but it’s still profitable. To find out how the Journal Sentinel uses quality journalism to stay in the black, Street Fight spoke with editor and senior vice president George Stanley.

#SFSNYC VIDEO: How the World’s Largest Advertiser, P&G, Targets Consumers on a Local Level

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In a wide-ranging Street Fight Summit fireside chat, Ajay Kapoor, who oversees global business solutions for Procter & Gamble, covered everything from the wealth of market research sources P&G has at its disposal to channel marketing strategies to on-the-ground local initiatives in emerging markets like India.

Street Fight Daily: Amazon Kills Its Groupon and Square Competitors, the Rise of Hypertargeted Ads

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Kills Two Businesses: Local Daily Deals and Its Square Competitor (Recode)… The $21.8 Billion Reason Ultra-Personal Online Ads Are Coming (Fast Company)… Pondering Homejoy’s Failure (Medium)…

LBMA Podcast: Google Unveils Shopping Insights, Uniqlo Monitors Shoppers’ Brainwaves with UMood

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On the show: Google unveils Shopping Insights tool; Uniqlo’s UMood monitors shoppers’ brainwaves to help them pick the perfect t-shirt; Zikit’s “Now or Never” coupons; paying with sounds; Short Edition short story vending machine; Unmapped; Pixie tags; GPS-based metering in New York City. Plus, news from UNICEF and Target; and MapQuest.

#SFSNYC VIDEO: Where Are Today’s Billion-Dollar Local Opportunities?

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In a panel at the annual Street Fight Summit, two experienced venture capitalists active in the local space shared their outlook on funding trends, pitches they frequently hear, and the growing internationalization of startup culture.