News and Analysis
After Amazon-Whole Foods, Microsoft-Kroger: The Grocery Revolution Is Happening
Microsoft and Kroger are teaming up, challenging Amazon’s dominance in grocery innovation and pushing back against its takeover of an increasing number of corporate verticals, including cloud infrastructure in the form of Amazon Web Services. (Street Fight’s Mike Boland has predicted that Amazon will sell its grocery tech just as it’s done with AWS, taking an in-house innovation and transforming it into a cash cow.)
How 5 Brands Leverage Voice Search Technology
Twenty percent of mobile searches now are voice-initiated, with voice technology users most likely to ask about business addresses, directions, and hours, followed by whether stores carry specific items. Let’s look at how five of these brands are taking advantage of voice search, and what other industry players could be learning from their approaches.
Los Angeles Sues Over Weather Channel App’s Data-Collection Practices
The move is representative of changing winds on attitudes toward privacy in the location data ecosystem. Following a series of New York Times Facebook and location data exposés and explainers, and with America’s own GDPR, the California Consumer Privacy Act, slated to go into effect on January 1, 2019, companies are waking up to a new reality in which selling and sharing user data to the tune of billions of dollars in revenue with little oversight is over.
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Case Study: Reliability in New Scheduling Platform Helps Chicago Salon Maintain Buzz
Online scheduling platforms are supposed to save merchants time by automating client bookings, cancellations, reminders, and even payment collection. But when merchants stop trusting their own scheduling platforms, and start verifying individual bookings for accuracy, the benefits of online-only systems go out the window. For an exclusive Chicago salon, switching things up helped maintain buzz and business.
Street Fight Daily: Facebook’s New Retail Features, Local Mobile Ad Spend to Reach $6.5 Billion by 2019
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Woos Retailers and Shoppers Alike with New Features (Gigaom)… Mobile Spend by Local Advertisers Forecast to Hit $6.5B by 2019 (MediaPost)… Security, Data Breaches Slow Down Mobile Payments Adoption (eMarketer)…
LBMA Podcast: Walkbase and Samsung Team up for In-Store Analytics, Localistico Makes Location Easier for SMEs
On the show: Walkbase and Samsung team up for in-store analytics; Localistico makes location easier for SMEs; Amazon creates its own Uber for packages with “Flex;” Nescafé and Google partner for 360-degree virtual reality experience; Beacons for Good. Plus, news from Best Buy, Google, Foursquare and OpenTable, and Virgin and Netflix.
Street Culture: Signpost on Being a Scrappy Startup
When you’re fast-growing startup company, the most important thing is hiring the right people. That means people who can do the job, and also, in some cases, people who are willing to build desks, said Justin Donnarumma, director of sales at Signpost, a marketing automation technology company that launched in 2010. “That’s the kind of scrappiness we look for in new hires.”
Street Fight Daily: More Google Searches on Mobile Than Desktop, Twitter’s New Video Ad Model
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Mobile Searches Surpass Desktop Searches at Google (TechCrunch)… Video Ads Could Become Twitter’s Biggest Cash Cow Yet (The Next Web)… DuckDuckGo CEO Calls out Google and Says It’s a ‘Myth You Need to Track People to Make Money’ (Business Insider)…
Ad Blocking and iOS 9: How Bad It Could Get and What Publishers Can Do
The impact of Apple’s decision to allow ad blocking apps on devices running the latest version of the company’s mobile operating system continues to reverberate across the advertising and publishing landscape. A recent report by web design and development agency 10up predicts potentially steep revenue losses for publishers. Both advertisers and publishers are closely monitoring user adoption of ad blocking apps and considering possible responses.
Rocket Fuel’s Medici: Within Two Election Cycles, Everything is Going to Be Done Programmatically
“In politics, advertising is definitely still a TV-centric world. But we’re moving in a direction where the voter is going to be a 360-degree touchpoint, and the media accessibility is going to be very easy. Everything is going to be done programmatically, and I think you’ll see that shift within two election cycles,” said Rocket Fuel national director of politics and advocacy JC Medici.
Street Fight Daily: Amazon Launches Etsy Competitor, Controversial Verizon ‘Supercookie’ Is Back
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Challenges Etsy with Strictly Handmade Marketplace (New York Times)… Verizon to Combine Its ‘Supercookie’ Data with AOL for Online and Mobile Targeting (Marketing Land)… Why a Twitter/Square Hookup Would Make Sense for SMBs (AdExchanger)…
Online Reviews Providing Insights That Help Brands Compete
The evidence is in. Reviews on social media have a material impact on the capital investments made by nationwide brands. The key is strength in numbers: A national brand will be more likely to have the critical mass of reviews required in order to move beyond anecdotal evidence and glean statistically significant results.
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