Groupon Rebounds in First Quarter Without Mason
Eric Lefkofsky, who is serving as co-interim chief executive with Ted Leonsis, opened the earnings call Wednesday evening with an apology to investors, admitting that the company had “spread [itself] too thin and failed to focus on things that will have the greatest impact.” Part of that extension, Lefkofsky admitted, was overinvesting in a secondary businesses like Groupon Goods at the cost of its more profitable local segment…
Employees’ Overtime Suit Forces Daily Voice to Seek Bankruptcy Protection
Daily Voice, the recently scaled-down regional network of 41 community news sites, filed for and won Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week. The move gives the company relief from an expensive class-action suit by two former reporters who said they and other Daily Voice staff worked overtime consistently but were never paid for the extra hours…
Yext Redesigns App in Shift from Data to Content
A week after scoring a big integration with Facebook, Yext has redesigned its mobile application to focus on content creation. The move comes as the company looks to transition its network from a tool for merchants to occasionally update a phone number or address across multiple properties to something akin to a content marketing network where brick and mortar businesses can create and distribute photos and posts from a single location…
Street Fight Daily: FoodPanda Raises $20M, TripAdvisor Schemes for More Reviews
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Rocket Internet-Backed FoodPanda Raises $20M+ As It Prepares For The Next Course In Its Food Delivery Ambitions (TechCrunch)… TripAdvisor’s plan to get another 100 million reviews: Have hotels do the work (Skift)… Local Ad Network Sees Shift To Tighter Mobile Targeting (MediaPost)…
Group Commerce to Merge With Nimble Commerce
Three months after laying off a quarter of its staff, Group Commerce has agreed to merge with its primary competitor, Nimble Commerce, in an all-stock deal, continuing the consolidation among white-label deal companies. Under the terms of the deal, Nimble Commerce CEO Prashant Nedungadi will lead the new firm, which will retain the Nimble Commerce name…
Street Fight Daily: Twitter Brings Local Trends to Mobile, Square Poaches PayPal Exec
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Twitter Updates Its Apps with New Trends Locations (TheNextWeb)… Square Hires An Exec From PayPal To Form Payments Partnerships With Retailers (TechCrunch)… Brownstoner Founder Jonathan Butler’s Venture-ing into Queens (Daily News)…
Yelp Finds Antidote to Mobile Burn in Bundled Inventory
Shares of Yelp rose 10% in after hours trading Wednesday evening after the company reported strong top-line growth in Q1 2013. The reviews site grew its revenue by 67% year-over-year to $46.1 million in Q1, cutting its net loss in half to $4.8 million from $9.8 million a year earlier. The bump came on the back of a 81% jump revenue from local businesses as well as successful monetization efforts in nascent international markets.
Street Fight Daily: Discover Pushes Paypal In-Store, Twitter Opens Self-Serve Ads
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Discover Pushes PayPal’s In-Store Service as First Data Holds Out (Wall Street Journal)… Twitter Opens Up Self-Serve Advertising Platform to All Businesses (GigaOm)… Won’t You Be in My Nextdoor Network? (AllThingsD)…
Survey Shows Rise In Mobile Search as a Starting Point for Consumers
A new survey, released by Telmetrics and xAd, indicates that there is increasing use of mobile devices by consumers as a part of their path-to-purchase, as well as increasing desire for local. The results found that 45% of consumers go to their mobile device first when starting a search. One-third said they used mobile throughout their purchasing process, two-thirds switched to another device or converted offline…
As Tide Turns, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley Responds to Critics
The technology community seems to have turned on Foursquare in recent months, with some people publicly deriding the once-adored company. Dennis Crowley, the company’s founder, responded to criticism Monday morning, asserting that Foursquare is in the process of “basically reinventing local search.”
Openings & New Hires at Amazon, AOL, WebMD, Edmunds, Swipely and more…
Ray King is an extremely clever and creative visionary in the space and as a graduate of M.I.T. majoring in computer science and later becoming the CEO of Snapnames. He is a perfectionist. His new company Top Level Design, seeks to capitalize on new “top-level” domains awaiting approval. Read about more hyperlocal execs on the move in this week’s Movers & Shakers column…
Street Fight Daily: Twitter Tests Local Discovery, Bing Aggregates Deals (Again)
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Twitter Testing New Local Discovery Features — And It’s About Time (AllThingsD)… Microsoft Quietly Shuts Down Bing Deals, Launches Bing Offers As A Replacement (TechCrunch)… Belly Dance: Can Lightbank and Chicago’s Hot New Company Avoid Groupon’s Missteps? (PandoDaily)…
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Challenges Yelp, Foursquare Rethinks the Web
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Facebook Challenges Yelp With Mobile Pages Redesign Featuring Actions, Local Biz Details, And Ratings (TechCrunch)… Foursquare Revamps Business Pages to Take on Yelp as Web Visitors Hit 50 Million per Month (Verge)… Can Yelp Hold Off Foursquare and Facebook? (Screenwerk)…
Locu Adds Yelp to Its Growing List of Publisher Partners
The company has announced a new partnership with local reviews and discovery service Yelp. The partnership, which follows previous deals with OpenTable and CitySearch, means that Locu’s 15,000 local merchant customers will be able to distribute their location, coordinates, hours, and menus to Yelp with real-time updates…
Street Fight Daily: Groupon Bounces Back, Tablets Replace Registers
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Groupon’ Stock is Up 40% Since Andrew Mason’s Departure (TheNextWeb)… With Tablets, Businesses Ring Up at More Fanciful Cash Registers (New York Times)… Google Places For Business Gets Its Own iPhone App For Managing Listings (SearchEngineLand)…
Street Fight Daily: Facebook’s Latent Local Threat, Why Reviews Trump Social
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Facebook Local Search’s Sleeping Giant, or Just Sleeping? (SearchEngineWatch)… Why Customer Reviews Trump Social-Media Marketing (Inc.)… Personalized Commerce: Coming to an Internet Near You (AdAge)…