Hyperlocal M&A in 2015 — Here’s What Some Potential Acquirers Are Looking For

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With the new year just around the corner, corporate development teams are undoubtedly gearing up for 2015 acquisitions. The local technology industry saw plenty of M&A activity in 2014 and remains poised for another busy year as established firms look to stay on top and a new batch of public companies come into capital…

Study: 1 in 10 Mobile Ad Impressions in Retail Leads to a Store Visit

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xAd released a report this week detailing some new findings about the way mobile ads influence store visits in the auto, retail and restaurant industry. The results show the increasing importance of connecting online mobile activities to offline conversions and store visitation.

Street Fight Daily: GoDaddy Renews IPO Push, Amazon Eyes Hotels

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…GoDaddy Seeks Nearly $4.5b IPO Valuation, Talks Diversifying (New York Post)… Amazon to Get Into Hotel Booking With Launch of Travel Site (Skift)… Leaked Internal Uber Deck Reveals Staggering Revenue And Growth Metrics (Business Insider)…

LBMA Podcast: Urban Airship and Beacons, MapQuest Commutes

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On the show: Urban Airship and Gimbal cozy up to beacons; MoPub and Juice Mobile team up; Estimote maps the indoors; AirPatrol secures two patents; xAd teams with Captivate Networks; and special guest is SchneiderMike from Skyhook Wireless…

Street Fight Daily: Facebook’s Hyperlocal Ads, Yext Hires for IPO

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Facebook Launches Hyper-Local Ads Targeted To People Within A Mile Of A Business (TechCrunch)… With This Hire, Yext Seems Poised for IPO (New York Business Journal)… San Francisco Legalizes Airbnb (Recode)…

LBMA Podcast: AVG Acquires LocationLabs, Twilio CMO Lynda Smith

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On the show: Heineken’s location-based loyalty rewards for small bars; xAd and IndoorAtlas raise rounds; InMobi partners with Factual on mobile ads; FUZ design brings us the bluetooth-enabled Noke padlock; MCX to launch the CurrentC wallet and Isis rebrands…

Street Fight Daily: Uber’s ‘Gentler’ Approach, The Return of Directories

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyUber CEO Thinks It Needs To Be Kinder And Gentler Now That It’s On Top (TechCrunch)… Foursquare Reintroduces Leaderboards in Swarm Update (Mashable)… Post-Pigeon Best Practice: How To Optimize For Internet Yellow Pages & Directories (SearchEngineLand)…

Boxscore: Apple Will Dominate Payments, Says Everyone Except Apple

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A weekly recap of the week that was in local tech with a mix of news bits, analysis and hearsay.

Street Fight Daily: xAd Raises $50 Million, iWatch to Include Payments

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyLocation Is Everything, As Mobile Ad Startup xAd Raises $50M Led By IVP (TechCrunch)… Apple Watch to Allow Mobile Payments (Wall Street Journal)… Interpublic Invests in Mobile Measurement Company Placed (MediaPost)…

Street Fight Daily: Foursquare Taps Expertise, SEOs Weigh ‘Pigeon’

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyFoursquare’s Redesign Will Make Expertise the New Gamification (Pando)… Experts Weigh In On Google’s “Pigeon” Update Aimed At Improving Local Search Results (SearchEngineLand)… San Francisco Airport Tests Beacon Sensors to Guide Blind Travelers (Mashable)…

Study: Consumers Increasingly Receptive to Mobile Ads

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A new study released by xAd and Telmetrics finds that consumer engagement with mobile ads has increased dramatically over the past few years. Nearly 50% of mobile shoppers said that they found mobile ads informative/helpful — up from 22% in 2013. In addition, nearly half of respondents who clicked on mobile ads said they went on to take secondary actions (like viewing a website or searching for additional information)…

Mobile’s Increasingly Strong Influence in Consumer Purchase Decisions

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The third annual installment of the xAd/Telmetrics Mobile Path-to-Purchase study shows that mobile is a powerful force throughout the consumer purchase cycle. Consumers are spending more research time on their mobile devices than on their PCs, and more than one-third of mobile users use their devices exclusively to research purchases…

Street Fight Daily: Airbnb Tests Local Experiences, Patch Turns a Corner

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyAirbnb Quietly Tests Selling Tours and Other ‘Experiences’ (VentureBeat)… Patch, a Network for Hyperlocal News, Turns a Corner (Boston Globe)… PubMatic, xAd Team To Launch Location-Based Programmatic Marketplace For Mobile (MediaPost)…

xAd CEO: Small Businesses Still a ‘Huge, Huge Market’ for Ad Tech

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Location marketing company xAd, which started as a search advertising firm five years ago, generated over $65 million in run-rate revenue by the end of last year, half of which came from small and medium-sized businesses. Street Fight recently caught up with the company’s chief executive Dipanshu Sharma to discuss the challenges in finding recurring revenue in mobile, how location can solve that problem, and where the money would come from to build a lasting local advertising company in mobile…

Street Fight Daily: Square Discusses Sale, Facebook’s Local Ads

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyMobile-Payments Startup Square Discusses Possible Sale (Wall Street Journal)… Facebook ‘Nearby Friends’ Will Track Your Location History To Target You With Ads (TechCrunch)… TPG-Led Group Closes $450 Million Investment in Airbnb (Wall Street Journal)…

Openings and New Hires at xAd, Kenshoo, PayPal and Local Market Launch

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Every two weeks, Search Influence’s Kelly Benish — who knows practically everyone in hyperlocal — covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. In this week’s edition, new hires and jobs at Microsoft, Mediative, hibu, Angie’s List and more…

Consolidation Watch — Where to Look for Deals in Local Tech

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The first half of 2013 saw total investment activity, which includes both M&A and private financing, grow from a year earlier, as the number of deals stayed flat but total reported deal value jumped from $5.2 billion to $7.2 billion over the same period. Expect to see more deals — both large and small — in the local space as big firms search for a foothold in the industry and host of maturing startups look for the exit…

How the Internet of Things Could Spawn a New Kind of Analytics

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A new set of technology companies are working to help transform the way businesses understand consumer behavior in the real world. Powering these new technologies is a burgeoning web of connected devices — from smartphones and thermostats to wireless routers and traffic cameras — that constantly collect a river of information about their surroundings…

Street Fight Daily: NextDoor Raises $60 Million, First Data Acquires Perka

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyNextdoor Raises $60 million In Funding To Bring Neighbors Together (GigaOm)… First Data Acquires Cardless Customer Loyalty Startup Perka (AllThingsD)… Yelp Loss Widens, With Costs Eclipsing Revenue (Wall Street Journal)…

Street Fight Daily: PayPal’s (New) Way To Pay, AmEx Links To TripAdvisor

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyPayPal, Aiming For Retail Ubiquity, Adds One More Way To Pay (ReadWrite)… Encouraging the Reviewers, Honestly (New York Times)… Google Moving Staff From Search To Its Payments Business In A New Push For Google Wallet (Business Insider)…