Groupon’s smashing success has spawned hundreds of clones and, given its relatively simple technology and the absence of entry barriers, buoyed those imitators that they too may strike it rich in social commerce. Wildfire Promotion Builder comes at it from a different angle. Rather than wrangle with the behemoth head-on, the start-up sees itself as a complement that …

To date, most location-specific advertising requires in-store check-ins to unlock discounts and special offers. Naturally, that necessitates having a storefront that lends itself to walk-in — and check-in — traffic. Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt and others have garnered first-mover hype with these location-based services but have struggled to achieve mainstream adoption beyond the tech elite.
JiWire is extending …

During the 72-hour whirlwind that was ILM:10, several other announcements also came down the pike. Among them:
- Group buying giant Groupon continues its flurry of partnerships. The Chicago-based deal a day inked separate deals with the Chicago Tribune Media Group and JiWire. The Tribune agreement calls for Groupon to power local deals each weekday on the company’s recently …

In the wake of Groupon’s rejection of Google’s reported $6 billion offer, Groupon VP of Business Development Sean Smyth told ILM:10 attendees that one positive aspect of the news coverage was the incredible exposure Groupon received. “We had 3 million new e-mail subscribers last week,” he said. “We normally get 1 million per week.”
Smyth, a …

Fresh in the wake of reports that Google will spend at least $5.3 billion on Groupon, LivingSocial — the Avis of deal a day — has announced a $175 million investment from Amazon. It simultaneously announced an additional $8 million investment from Lightspeed Venture Partners.
“If you want to become the biggest local commerce player, …

Google is reportedly set to pay $5.3 billion for Groupon, a spectacular investment that would give The Big G a compelling way to get close to local businesses, leverage Gmail and really rev up a social media paradigm (as opposed to search).
The big price, if it is consummated, clearly is not based on the …

With more than 150 brands offering daily deals, and traditional media companies now building out their own deals platforms, the need for differentiation is apparent. LivingSocial, which according to compete.com boasts as many monthly unique visitors as Groupon, has acquired social adventure company Urban Escapes to position itself as a “local activity discovery engine,” not simply a deals provider.
Rather than deals, …

Media General is the latest traditional media franchise to partner with a deal-a-day provider, launching a partnership with Groupon to open a new revenue stream in the much-hyped group buying space.
Media General owns both local television stations (18 total) and newspapers (21 daily and more than 200 specialty publications), and the partnership covers both markets. …

AOL is taking the plunge into the competitive deal-a-day space, launching Wow! as an integrated deals sites under the larger brand that will serve “your bargain of choice” from both local and national offers.
Increasingly, group buying offers are sold like advertising units, not promotional items. The initial value proposition is strong: no upfront costs, strong …

The deal-a-day marketplace is shaping up as a couple of leading brands in each market, some local media using white-label solutions and a healthy dose of aggregators repeating most or all the deals.
Seeing to cut across much of the deal-a-day ecosystem is Seattle-based Tippr, a well-funded 40-person company that focuses on white-label deals with …

The Groupon deal-a-day model — “no money upfront, but we’ll take up to 50 percent of the coupon value” — has been met with high satisfaction. Groupon’s internal data show that 97 percent of participating SMBs want to do it again.
But the model has been taking real heat this week from some SMBs on the …

Groups have been using the Web since the mid-1980s for a wide range of activities, such as scheduling, discussions, photo sharing, referrals etc. Groups have been a special strength for Yahoo.
BigTent, a group software company based in San Francisco, has recently been vying with Yahoo for the same market, focusing largely on women. It now …

 
BIA/Kelsey has asserted that a logical next step for deal-a-day providers is to target smaller geographical radii and specific consumer preferences to bolster their value proposition. LivingSocial has made a move in that direction by serving deals at the neighborhood — or sub-metro — level.  
New York and Washington, D.C. (LivingSocial’s home base), are debuting the offering. …

Today, Yellowbook is launching a group buying/deal-a-day product called Weforia.com in three of its markets — Boston, Phoenix and Ft. Myers, Florida. This makes Yellowbook the first U.S. Yellow Pages publishers to enter this space, which has become a local phenomenon thanks to the success of Groupon.
Yellowbook’s Mike Wilson told us this morning that the …

Today, Yellowbook is launching a group buying/deal-a-day product called Weforia.com in three of its markets — Boston, Phoenix and Ft. Myers, Florida. This makes Yellowbook the first U.S. Yellow Pages publishers to enter this space, which has become a local phenomenon thanks to the success of Groupon.
Yellowbook’s Mike Wilson told us this morning that the …

A majority of the on-the-go crowd is open to sharing its location in exchange for relevant advertising. Men share their location more often than women. And couponing is still king, with check-ins playing catch-up. These are just a few of the findings from JiWire’s Q2 2010 Mobile Audience Insights Report, which studies consumer behavior and device …

With 200+ deal-a-day sites and vendors, the only way to carve out a niche is to find dramatically different takes on group buying (i.e., focusing on verticals or integrating with other content). How about making your buys visible to your entire social network, and going deeper on the game mechanisms?
That’s the approach being taken …

Some people (like me) don’t like games. Game mechanics-driven “check in” media like Foursquare, GoWalla, Loopt and BrightKite mostly leave them cold.
But what if check-ins triggered group buying discounts? That’s the concept behind GroupTabs, a new service launching in New York City next week. The idea is that offers could be floated on smartphones with …

Groupon has been working to bust out of the limited inventory that seems inherent in its “deal a day” space. First, it added a “side” deal in many markets. Then it started breaking out some of the larger markets into urban and suburban areas — something LivingSocial has pushed even harder on. Separately, it has …

Small businesses are gaining the ability to interact with customers anytime, as e-mail marketing gives way to “the social graph,” says local marketing pioneer Perry Evans, who is introducing Closely Inc., a new firm dedicated to helping SMBs leverage the new opportunities in online and mobile marketing.
Like everyone else, Evans says he has watched the …