News and Analysis
Urban Airship Acquires Accengage, Becomes World’s Largest Mobile Customer Engagement Company
Urban Airship, which serves Fortune 25 brands such as Adidas, BBC, and Vodafone, indicated that it would use the combined resources now at its disposal to expand the technical capabilities of its slate of mobile solutions. It will also take advantage of Accengage’s native expertise in the European market, particularly at a time when increased regulation on both sides of the Atlantic is underscoring the importance of strong policy and PR teams.
Google and Amazon Escalate Voice ‘Platform Wars’
Mike Boland: Any entity competing for local commerce—publishers, brands, ad-tech players—has a looming platform choice for voice. Like the platform wars between iOS and Android, it’s a matter of deciding where to apply finite resources and development muscle. Maybe the answer is “both” Google and Amazon. But for now, Google appears to have the lead.
Doddle Launches in US, Pushing Click-and-Collect Forward for American Retail
Touting the fact that 70% of U.S. shoppers have leveraged click-and-collect options at their disposal in the last six months, Doddle, which has been active in the UK, will be helping major retail partners such as Amazon create smoother buying experiences for customers who want to take advantage of one-click online ordering while avoiding the process of delivery.
Commentary
Rating Street Fight’s 2015 Predictions
At the end of each year, Street Fight invites staffers, friends, and luminaries from the industry to share their predictions for what’s in store for the coming year. Today, we take a look back at some of the predictions for 2015 to see who was on target and who missed the mark.
Street Fight Hyperlocal Analyst Predictions for 2016
With 2015 drawing to a close, it’s time again to look ahead to what we can expect in the hyperlocal space in 2016. This year, we did things a little differently. We invited our regular analyst contributors to 1) weigh in on what they felt would be a “sure thing” in the coming year, 2) offer a prediction on something that might get big (but might not happen), and 3) identify something that hyperlocal marketers and merchants really don’t need to worry about. This is the first of several predictions pieces we will feature this week.
Ad Blockers: One Big Distraction from the Real Issue
In a year of overblown topics, the grand prize goes to mobile ad blockers. The backlash is not only disproportionate to real impact but also has fueled the wrong conversation. Instead of fighting ad blockers — or fueling them in the case of biased reports — the ad industry should ask itself how it got in this position to begin with.
Latest Posts
Raise Report: Radius, Shopkeep, Stripe Rake in Big Rounds
Every two weeks we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. In this edition, new investments include big votes of confidence for Twilio, Yozio, and Little.
LBMA Podcast: Beacons, WeChat and Proximity Messaging with NOD,
On the show: Visor let’s you see what’s happening around the globe; Michigan University opens up MCity to test driverless cars; Beacons + WeChat test from Chow Tai Fook brings in $16M; Hipcamp’s landsharing services. Member news from Canadian Tire, Placed and Wendy’s.
Street Fight Daily: Small-Scale Shipping Firms Are Having a Moment, Jet.com Struggles
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Growth of E-commerce Pushes Funds Into Small-Fry Shipping Firms (Reuters)… Jet.com Runs Into Turbulence With Retailers (Wall Street Journal)… Not Just An App: The Front End Of The Trillion-Dollar, Full-Stack Revolution (TechCrunch)…
Click-to-Calls Are Clicking — And a Lot of the Sales Are Close to Home
A new study from Marchex has put a dollar amount on the business generated when consumers tap on a click-to-call ad or search listing on their mobile device: more than $1 trillion each year.
Prompt.ly Launches App to Help ‘Solopreneurs’ Manage Their (Very) Small Businesses
The platform, which provided scheduling, invoicing, payments and promotions, recently launched a mobile app that helps very small business owners — what CEO Richard Titus calls “solopreneurs” — easily manage their businesses on their phone.
Street Fight Daily: Uber Reportedly Losing Money Despite VC Success, Yelp and ProPublica Team Up
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Here Are the Internal Documents that Prove Uber Is a Money Loser (Gawker)… ProPublica Teams Up With Yelp to Make It Easier to Find Good Local Health Care Services (NiemanLab)… Here’s How Facebook Is Turning Its Local Ad Unit Into a Customer Service Channel (AdWeek)…
5 Dashboards for Monitoring Nearby Social Content
Social media has become a go-to channel for small business marketing, but whether a business is successful at achieving its campaign goals depends largely on strategy. Here are five examples of location-based social monitoring dashboards that merchants can try.
Bringg CTO: Delivering On-Demand Experiences ‘Never Existed Before’
The emergence of on-demand applications has set a new standard for convenience that has left existing companies struggling to keep up with on-demand startups. Street Fight recently caught up with Bringg’s CTO Lior Sion to talk about the market opportunity for local on-demand.
Street Fight Daily: The Evolution of Groupon, Target Tests Beacons
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The Rise, Fall, and Improbable Comeback Strategy of Groupon (Eater)… Target Testing Beacons to Provide In-Store Shoppers Coupons, Recommendations (Minneapolis StarTribune)… Instacart Makes Its First Acquisition With “Acqui-hire” Of App Maker Wedding Party (TechCrunch)…
INFOGRAPHIC: A Quick, Deep Dive Into Local Optometrists
Local optometrists in the U.S. number some 33,000 businesses and generate an estimated $15B in annual sales at an average of $450k per year. The industry is growing at 5% annually, but it’s under considerable pressure from the likes of Amazon and Warby Parker.
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem