Also: Why booksellers are resisting Amazon’s publishing venture; Why the iPad Mini may not be as popular.
Foursquare looks into a fourth round at an over $700 million valuation [TECHCRUNCH]
Perhaps investors are having a hard time drumming up enthusiasm because the company is valued at just under half the market cap of its public competitor Yelp, which boasts 84 million unique monthly visitors and 33 million reviews. The company has 25 million registered users according to its website, and has 4 million monthly active users logging in through Facebook Connect according to AppData (the total number of monthly actives is not disclosed by the company). However CEO Dennis Crowley did confirm that the app had more daily active users than Yelp’s 7.2 million in an interview with Sarah Lacy in October.
Booksellers resisting Amazon’s disruption [THE NEW YORK TIMES]
Now that publication is at hand, that future looks messy and angry. Barnes & Noble, struggling to remain relevant in Amazon’s shadow, has been emphatic that it will not carry its competitor’s books. Other large physical and digital stores seem to be uninterested or even opposed to the book. Many independent stores feel betrayed by Mr. Ferriss, whom they had championed. They will do nothing to help him if it involves helping a company they feel is hellbent on their destruction.
Uber NYC and the Sandy Surge [FORTUNE]
In response to the criticism, Uber published lengthy posts explaining the dynamics of marketplaces. Right idea, but oh so wrong. While the logic was true, the humanity was missing. The average person just heard that Uber was charging New Yorkers more post-hurricane. I used to see Google make this mistake frequently in our communications on controversial topics. Data and logic told us we were correct and we’d just keep showing you more of it, or describing our thought process. We greeted emotion with facts. In the face of emotion, data can be a foreign language. It doesn’t matter how loudly and slowly you say it, some people don’t understand. In fact, all you’re doing is pissing them off.
Apple’s iPad Mini tests crowded market [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]
Demand was strong in storm-ravaged New York, where hundreds still gathered outside Apple’s flagship Fifth Avenue store. But the initial crowd of 580 fell below the 750 that greeted the launch of the last version of the iPad this March, according to counts from Piper Jaffray.
Elsewhere in the U.S., lines were also shorter than recent launches. In Apple’s backyard of San Francisco, lines at a downtown store were half to less than a third of the size they have been for other Apple gadgets.
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