Here is today’s roundup of news related to local marketing and advertising, local media, technology, local commerce, consumer behavior and more.

Yelp announces expanding “Yelp Knowledge” social analytics program (June 29, 2016)
Marketing Land: “Yelp is expanding the group of third party companies that can directly access its complete reviews data and announcing a new program called “Yelp Knowledge.” Earlier this year the company provided its full database to Sprinklr. Today, Yelp identified additional partners to gain access: Medallia, Reputology and Revinate.”

Facebook makes Pages’ organic reach in News Feed even more dependent on shares (June 29, 2016)
Marketing Land: “To stay in the friend zone, Facebook will take a harder look at whether friends are sharing a Page’s post before putting it in people’s feeds.”

Survey: Amazon beats Google as starting point for product search (June 28, 2016)
Search Engine Land: “A survey of 1,000 US consumers conducted by PowerReviews found that Amazon is the preferred starting point for product search. Google comes in a close second, followed by brand/retailer sites and e-commerce marketplaces (eBay, Etsy, etc.).”

Video is coming to SoundCloud (for ads at least) (June 28, 2016)
Forbes: “In its bid to bring in some much-needed cash, SoundCloud has announced that video will soon be making its debut on the mobile app…though not in the form that many have been hoping for.”

MRC outlines mobile viewability metrics (June 28, 2016)
MediaPost: “As promised, The Media Rating Council (MRC) has issued guidelines on mobile viewability measurement, which offer directions for measuring viewable impressions in mobile Web and “in-app” environments.”

R2integrated: Any Brand With Physical Stores Needs A Cross-Device Strategy (June 28, 2016)
GeoMarketing: “Today’s buyer expects online and offline to be one in the same, says the marketing agency’s managing director, David Taub.”