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The Gold Rush to develop the local ad sales army

Yesterday’s news of Groupon’s massive $950 million financing round wasn’t unexpected, and just confirms their intent to build a sales army to dominate SMB business in the same way Yellow Pages held sway over local advertisers in the 20th Century. Morgan Brown explains the new Groupon strategy well: Groupon knows that in order to grow [...]

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8 Major Social Commerce Trends for 2011

8 Major Social Commerce Trends for 2011

“Social commerce” became a buzz word in the summer of 2010: Here are eight new trends in social commerce that will appear in 2011: 1) Demand based shopping applications Groupon demonstrated how supply in the form of retail inventory can be packaged into deep discount opportunities. Demand is the inverse – how many people in [...]

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Reviewing 2010 – based on 2009 media predictions

Reviewing 2010 – based on 2009 media predictions

One year ago, I listed ten media predictions for 2010. Here’s an update. Many of my predictions are still work in progress: 1) Community engagement will become the driver of new local media. One definitive result: 2010 brought the expansion of AOL’s Patch across almost 200 cities, each with a salaried managing editor. It’s important [...]

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Deals Aggregation, Deal Feeds and Syndication Networks (Slideshow)

Deals Aggregation, Deal Feeds and Syndication Networks (Slideshow)

The next phase of Group Buying Systems View more presentations from Pat Kitano. Groupon announced its new Deal Feed that allows consumer to customize and monitor and filter the types of deals and merchants they want to track. The Deal Feed works in coordination with the new Groupon Stores product so that consumers can “follow” [...]

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Ten ways Facebook Deals changes the local deals landscape

Ten ways Facebook Deals changes the local deals landscape

Facebook announced yesterday that businesses can add deals and rewards for their customers who check in through Facebook Places. The impact on local advertising is huge: 1. Deals will be everywhere The “Deal” becomes the currency of local advertising because it is performance based, efficient for reaching the customer and isn’t burdened with the CPM-based [...]

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The Future of Hyperlocal Couponing – Women’s Networks

The Future of Hyperlocal Couponing – Women’s Networks

The recent mainstream media articles demonstrating evidence of Groupon’s shortcomings (including last week’s article)  are focused on the consequences of its massive distribution capabilities and non-local presence. First there was the dodgy fake deals in Brazil, then there was a business owner saying offering a Groupon deal was the worst business decision she ever made, [...]

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The problems with Groupon culture

The problems with Groupon culture

The dark side of the Daily Deals phenomenon manifests in three main problems vendors have with Groupon: Groupon can overwhelm small merchants when it sells too many coupons. How can a Chicago nail salon accommodate 5,100 new coupon holders? Groupon depresses profit margins. Obviously deep discount coupons are marketing loss leaders for local retailers. On [...]

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Groupon + Gap = tipping point for coupon adoption in America

Groupon + Gap = tipping point for coupon adoption in America

Groupon‘s nationwide rollout of $25 for $50 worth of Gap merchandise got a lot of mainstream media airplay and sold 441,000 Groupons, netting $11 million. The net effect is the mainstream buzz that introduces Groupon to America. The “daily deal” is becoming institutionalized as the advertising medium most compatible with the Great Recession. Here is [...]

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Twitter talks about real time advertising via @earlybird

Techcrunch posted this video interview in which Twitter product manager Shiva Rajaraman discusses how Twitter using its @earlybird couponing channel can work with brands to offer perishable deals on the fly (something we discussed last week): At first blush, Twitter faces three hurdles: @earlybird is positioned as another Groupon/LivingSocial/BuywithMe/etc., and couponing is becoming commoditized. So [...]

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Five future trends in mobile coupons

Five future trends in mobile coupons

Couponing exploded the first half of 2010, driven in part by Groupon’s big VC investment. Coupons.com reported almost double the revenues from the first half of 2010 over previous year. PromotionalCodes.org.uk published a forecast on mobile applications and couponing (click twice on graphic to enlarge) that predicts consumer spending on mobile coupon will grow from [...]

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