Marketing Biz: Yelp IPO Soars 60%, Facebook Pushes for HTML5 and Google Privacy Concerns Are Rampant (Except With Users)

This week brings us a new IPO darling, a mix of concerns around privacy and more movement from those looking to capture the SoLoMo market.

Yelp shares soar more than 60% in IPO

Yelp (YELP), a San Francisco-based ratings and reviews site, priced its IPO late Thursday at $15 per share. Shares jumped to $24.55 in midday trading, valuing Yelp at $1.47 billion.

Internet IPOs are back! Yelp shares spiked over 60% in their initial public offering, following successful IPOs by companies like Angie’s List, Zynga, LinkedIn and Groupon. This was the right time for Yelp to go public. Getting out before Facebook was important and Yelp needs to build more competitive moats to fend off a number of foes, the biggest of which is Google.

Facebook pushes for HTML5 standardization, mobile payments

Facebook is working with mobile operators to make phone-based payments easier and has launched an effort to standardize HTML5 to help developers write applications for more mobile handsets, its chief technology officer announced on Monday.

Facebook has made it clear that mobile is their future so it’s no surprise that Facebook is looking to make mobile payments easier. A Facebook mobile payment solution could be the glue that keeps users on the platform and ensures that Android and Google Wallet doesn’t become the ubiquitous payment option.

Judge dismisses lawsuit over Google privacy changes

A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) that sought to force the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to block Google’s planned privacy changes. 

The legal avenues to block the Google privacy changes are dwindling. This particular decision didn’t speak to the substance of the lawsuit but simply stated that it was out of the court’s purview to make the FTC enforce their own agreements.

Google users ignore major privacy shakeup

The repeated prompts and controversy have seemingly failed to generate much interest among British users, however. According to survey by YouGov for Big Brother Watch only 12 per cent have bothered to review the new document.

Foundations, privacy watchdogs and countries like France and Japan warn us about the Google privacy changes but there’s a general lack of action by the one constituency that could have the biggest voice – users. People say they care about privacy. But the difference between what people say and what they do is quite large. If that weren’t the case we’d all have lost those extra pounds, stopped smoking and begun to eat right.

Caterina Fake: Fast Growth for a New Social App Is a Very Bad Thing

“My perspective is it takes a while to grow this stuff,” she said. “It takes time for the culture to grow. You need time to develop antibodies to spammers and trolls.”

The worst thing a social network can do is force growth, she said, pointing to Google’s work on Google+.

There’s no question that Fake is smart and has a great pedigree. But Google+ was bound to have fast growth because it was built into the biggest Internet platform in the world. It’s not a simple destination site. In addition, our facility within social networks has grown based on prior experience and users likely need less time to reach community norms.

Foursquare Is Doing Big Things, So Existing Investor Spark Capital Buys $50M Of Employee Stock

Foursquare Explore allows users to discover nearby restaurants, bars, coffee shops, nightlife spots, and other venues, either by category, name, or even something more specific, like “sushi” or “hamburgers.” The feature taps into Foursquare’s own social graph in order to recommend places your friends have visited and liked, while also providing tips and comments from Foursquare’s wider network.

Currently known simply as a check-in service, FourSquare seems to be eyeing the local search space. It’s not a bad idea but the space is getting increasingly crowded as big players line up to combine search, mobile, local and payments.

Groupon Acquires Travel Search Company Uptake

Uptake used personalized social data to help users research destinations through their friend networks. When I talked to the company last year, CEO Yen Lee boasted of his company’s skills in analyzing unstructured data about travel, rather than relying on explicit signals like Foursquare check-ins.

Groupon snaps up yet another start-up in what appears to be a quest to deliver increasingly more relevant deals and offers by tapping into the mobile social environment. Did I mention that this space is getting pretty crowded?

[x+1] Announces Origin 3.5

Triggered by a customer interaction on a web page, or any [x+1] Origin-enabled touchpoint, the DMP can invoke a client’s email server, SMS marketing gateway, call center, click-to-call or chat service so that relevant, personalized marketing messages can be delivered to consumers in real time.  With this release, marketers can scale the synchronization of messages across more interactive channels, increasing reach and marketing ROI.

The distance between data and multi-channel marketing is almost gone and creating interactive multi-channel experiences could be a reality.