Google Launches Groupon Competitor

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siesta key window cleaning sarasota, floridaGoogle Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has announced that the search giant will launch its Groupon competitor on Wednesday, starting with Portland.

The news that Google is getting into the daily deals space is not a surprise. Google attempted and failed to acquire Groupon for $6 billion last year. A few months later, Mashable exclusively learned that Google was developing a Groupon competitor called Google Offers.

At the D9 Conference in Palos Verdes, California, Schmidt and Stephanie Tilenius, Google’s VP of commerce, demonstrated the company’s new product. It’s just like Groupon in that it provides users a daily deal from “thousands of merchant partners.” Google showed off a deal for $10 worth of Floyd’s coffee for $3 on stage.

The big selling point for Google Offers is that it will integrate seamlessly with Google Wallet, the company’s NFC-based payment system launching this summer. Instead of printing out a coupon or barcode, completed offers are put into a user’s Google Wallet, where they are automatically saved and redeemable. Eventually they will be utilized automatically through NFC.

Google Offers will be available Wednesday in Portland and eventually will roll out to New York, San Francisco and other cities during the summer.

Groupon Now

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Groupon has just launched Groupon Now, the company’s much-anticipated time-based deals app that wants to redefine how society eats and shops.

Groupon Now, which was first revealed in March, is a simple application within Groupon’s mobile apps that gives a user the ability to find local deals in realtime. This is accomplished by mapping a list of time-specific daily deals in the user’s vicinity. These daily deals can last anywhere from a few hours to a full day, depending on when and how long a business wants to run a deal.

The goal of Groupon Now is to give businesses the opportunity to bring in new customers during slow periods of business. If a restaurant knows that it gets weak business on Wednesday afternoons, it can set up a daily deal for that time frame. When a user checks the Groupon iOS or Android app at 3:00 PM on Wednesday, he or she will see that deal, creating a financial incentive to visit a new restaurant.

Unfortunately, Groupon Now is only available in Chicago (the location of Groupon’s headquarters) for now, but we bet it won’t be long until it rolls out to other cities around the world. It’s now available in Groupon’s iPhone and Android apps through an update in the iOS App Store and the Android Marketplace.

How to Become Successful

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This is a re-post from Business Insider:

“We are made to persist. That’s how we find out who we are.” — Tobias Wolff, Writer
The interesting thing about success is that anyone can do it. If you simply do what successful people do, you are inevitably going to be successful. Right? Well, ok, maybe it’s not simply a case of follow the leader. However, I can tell you that settling for ‘good enough’ is not the way to succeed.

Those that settle for good enough will regret their decision sooner or later and yearn for more. Good enough is simply never, well, be good enough. We are made for adventure, growth, and facing our fears. We are made to overcome challenges…to win.

Despite what the gurus tell you, there is no master secret or plan. There is however something else, something that is easily overlooked. It’s your brain, your vision and your passion. The ideal combination of those ingredients will help you supremely in life and believe it or not, success will follow if you figure this out.

Within this process, there are a ton of variables to consider. We’re going to talk about five major ones here.

1. Clarity

   First, you have to know what you want. It’s not enough to go after a profession that pays well. Making money your #1 priority will destroy your soul. It will leave you unsatisfied and miserable. Why do you think so many people have seemingly great jobs that pay well, but are still deeply depressed and unfulfilled?

   In order to discover what you want, you have to first discover what you don’t want. This can only be accomplished by trying, experimenting, and taking massive action. When you start, you will always be confused and unclear. As you keep moving forward, you will feel inspired to take action in one direction instead of the other.

   If you follow your heart, your life will not only become a fascinating adventure, but a journey of personal growth.

2. Focus

   Once you become clear about what you want to do, it’s important that you focus on the tasks that help you make the most progress. For example, if you’re building an online business, you can spend all the time you want checking email, but it won’t get you closer to the goals that truly matter in your life.

   An online business is not a business until a sale is made. In order to make sales, you have to create products, recommend products, build an email list, and do work that matters. It’s hard work and often uncomfortable, which is why most people avoid it. If you can discipline yourself to work on high-value tasks, your life will change for the better.

3. Goal Setting

   Goal setting gives your mind something to focus on. Our brains are goal seeking mechanisms. If you don’t give your mind something to go after, it won’t know what to do.

   When you have a goal, you will feel clear, motivated, and inspired to take action, because you know where you are going.

   A simple way to set simple goals is to ask yourself where you want to be twelve months from now. Use the SMART criteria for setting goals, which stands for

   • Specific

   • Measurable

   • Attainable

   • Realistic

   • Timely

   If you’re starting an online business, a good goal might be to get it to $1,000/month in 12 months. After you have that goal, you can start brainstorming how to attain that goal.

4. Action

   Once you’ve set your goal, it’s time to start taking massive action. Most successful people are positive. They face the same amount of challenges as anyone else. The only difference is that they view their failures differently. They know that by trying many things, they will succeed sooner or later, while unsuccessful people tend to give up before they’ve even started.

   If you want to succeed at anything, you have to become relentless.

5. Trial & Error

   Becoming successful is all about trial and error. The more you fail, the faster you will succeed. Keeping with our online business example, the way I succeeded in creating an online income was to be willing to try different things until I succeeded.

   This doesn’t mean you should jump from thing to thing before you’ve given it a chance. Believe me, I’ve been there and done that, and it doesn’t work.

   What you should do is pick one thing that has been proven to work, and make it work. It doesn’t matter if you make $50/month or $500/month. The important thing is that you stay focused until you make it work.

Action Steps
I want to leave you with a few action steps you can take right now to improve your life and the probability that you will succeed. So grab a pen and a piece of paper and get ready. By doing the simple exercises below, you will be much more likely to get what you want.

Remember, you can’t get what you want if you don’t know what you want in the first place.

1. Get clear about what you want. What is the final result you are after? Do you want better relationships, financial independence or something else?

2. Set a Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely goal. Write down 10 things you want to accomplish in the next 12 months.

3. Write your most important goal at the top of a blank sheet of paper and brainstorm ways to make it happen. Do this until you feel you can’t come up with any more ways, then push yourself to come up with more.

Anyone can become successful. There are no excuses. You can manifest your wildest dreams if you truly want to.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-become-wildly-successful-at-anything-2011-5#ixzz1LmVXXiXq

Group Buying in Asia

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This is a repost from Daily News:

Group buying sites are catching on in Asia as companies harness the power of social media to influence consumer behavior. International brands and local merchants alike are exploiting the business model, which offers attractive deals with a catch. ‘Basically, social media powers our business,’ says the chief executive of one of the local sites

Groupon Gets More Daily Deal Competition

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The following is a re-post from Mashable:

Add another big player to the list of Groupon competitors: AT&T.

The telecom giant Monday began pre-registration to consumers in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth for a service via the company’s yp.com that will send daily deals to consumers. The company is offering $10 toward the first Deal of the Day for those who sign up through May 22. The service is expected to go live in a few weeks.

Spokeswoman Dawn Benton says that initially the deals will be sent to users via email, but over time they will be broadcast to mobile phones as well. Benton says that the move is a “natural evolution” for AT&T. “Our Yellow Pages is a trusted brands that millions already turn to,” she says.

AT&T’s not the first to eye Groupon’s business, which has put the company on track for an IPO possibily in the $25 billion range. Google just got into the daily deals business itself with Google Offers and other major players, including Facebook and Groupon’s biggest pure-play rival LivingSocial. AT&T’s ShopAlert also texts information about nearby deals to consumers in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.

Group-Buying Coupon Business

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This is a re-post from dailyfinance.com

Facebook dipped a big toe into the group discount waters on Tuesday, launching a five-city test of its Deals on Facebook serviceand pitting it against industry stalwarts Groupon and LivingSocial, as well as host of other smaller players. But though it’s starting small and coming late to the game, analysts and merchants say they won’t be surprised if the social networking titan soon poses a viable threat to market leader Groupon.

Facebook offers merchants a far greater number of potential customers than competitors with its more than 500 million users, and its technology makes it easier for merchants to account for folks as they redeem their coupons, analysts and merchants say. That doesn’t bode well for Groupon or its investors as it eyes an IPO.

“Facebook made quite the momentous announcement,” says Karsten Weide, an industry analyst with IDC. “It has a lot of distribution to users for its service, so it’ll be challenging for Groupon. Facebook has a lot of traffic that they can drive to a deal offer that Groupon doesn’t have.”

Deals on Facebook was rolled out in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco, with plans to potentially expand the test to other cities later.

Groupon declined to comment for this story.

Selling the Experience, Not the Discount

For local merchants that also engage in online sales, Facebook’s large network of users should be a major selling point. It was for Christine Tran, owner of Artisan Wine Depot in Mountain View, Calif., one of the retailers participating in Facebook’s Deals launch.

Other issues that contributed to her decision included Facebook’s technology, which allows her to use her Facebook account to track customers who sign up for the discount in real-time and then click on their names as they redeem it. She noted other group-buying websites tend to use a paper-and-pencil approach, sending merchants a document that requires them to scratch off customers’ names as they redeem the discounts.

The clincher for Tran, however, was Facebook’s approach of defining and emphasizing a customer experience in its advertising, rather than focusing on the size of the price cut. For example, the 25% discount Artisan offered for its limited-production wine tasting is displayed in smaller type than the headline that touts the tasting itself.

“Discount deals like Facebook’s are a loss-leader for us,” Tran says. “I consider this part of our advertising budget, but I also want to attract customers who’ll want to come back later, not just for the deals. Facebook seemed interested in building our customer experience.”

An Offer That’s Right on Target

Pete Katz, managing partner of Counter Intelligence, expressed similar concerns when signing on for the launch of Deals on Facebook. Katz’s company operates six franchises of The Counter, a gourmet hamburger chain, in the greater San Francisco Bay area and near Sacramento.

“One of the first questions is who is going to see this ad, are they in the right demographics and will they be new or existing customers using this coupon,” Katz says. “We’ve used smaller, targeted group-buying [Web sites] in the past, and have had mixed results on getting repeat customers. We decided to participate because it would part of Facebook’s Deals launch and we felt we would be targeting an audience that appealed to us because we’re going for the more upscale customer base, and we were launching with similar companies, rather than just the coupon chasers.”

Both Counter Intelligence and Artisan Wine Depot noted they had been approached by Groupon and other broad-based group-buying websites previously, but had declined because they didn’t see them as a suitable fit. Katz said he has preferred to work with more niche group-buying sites and may continue work with Facebook after the launch depending on the results this offer gets. Tran, meanwhile, says she wanted to experiment with Facebook’s program before branching out, and doesn’t want several discount programs going simultaneously, given that she — like most retailers — is using her group-buying discount as a combination of advertising and a loss leader.

Merchants note that group-buying offers can be a double-edged sword. By offering their products and services at a large discount, they may generate a lot of traffic. But the discounted prices that are paid are usually split down the middle with the group-buying website, almost certainly meaning the coupons are sold at a loss. In other words, merchants can’t make up their losses by pushing more volume in sales. If they don’t generate repeat business, the offers don’t work.

Consumers, in some cases, are also feeling poorer despite all the savings, given that discount frenzy can drive many to overspend on products and services that they would otherwise pass on.

Groupon’s Biggest Challenge (and It Isn’t Facebook)

Meanwhile Groupon, Facebook and their competitors face a challenge in the group-buying business too, and perhaps not the one you’d expect: For them, the real difficulty lies in finding the right merchants to host on their group-buying sites, says Sucharita Mulpuru, a principal analyst with Forrester Research.

“The greatest challenge is not attracting customers but is merchant acquisition,” Mulpuru says. “Groupon’s biggest challenge day after day is finding great, compelling deals.” Facebook, with limited resources and a limited ability to service advertising clients, may end up relying on partners to handle Deals on Facebook clients, she says — or it move to a self-service model where local merchants handle ad placement themselves.

But a self-service model could bring host of other problems, Mulpuru says. “You then get a lot of junky deals on the site and not very good merchants.”

Facebook’s entry into Groupon’s backyard is not the biggest challenge the group-buying pioneer is facing, she adds. “If Groupon doesn’t get renewals every year, it becomes harder for them to do business,” explains Mulpuru. “They will either have to reduce their profit margins and take less from the merchants, or spend more to increase the size of their sales team … an investor should be questioning this.”

Daily Deals Bandwagon

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The following is a re-post from Mashable:

Every entrepreneur and his dog is offering a daily deals service these days. From Groupon‘s slightly more original voucher system to Facebook’s newly launched Deals platform, deals have taken precedence in the web startup landscape.

Courtesy of Online MBA, here’s a cheat sheet for how four of the most popular daily deals sites and services — LivingSocial, Groupon, Facebook Deals and Google Offers — work, including how much money these companies are making and how many users each one might have.

Facebook Deals and Google Offers are the two newer competitors in this already crowded field. While these programs come from two of the biggest names and the most powerful companies in the Internet’s ecosystem, we don’t yet have enough data on these specific features to really judge how well they’ll perform in the real world, where Groupon and its pure-play ilk are already fairly well established.

Take a look at the information presented below, and in the comments, let us know if you think the tech behemoths will crush the deals-focused startups or if you believe the startups have staying power — or perhaps daily deals aren’t a zero-sum game and there’s room for all these companies to profit.

Click to see larger image and embed code.

A Better Twitter Stream

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This is a re-post from Mashable:

With a billion tweets per week, Twitter has become a place for people and organizations of all types to share their thoughts, reading lists and whereabouts. Real estate pros, politicians, non-profits, journalists and small businesses are all using the social platform to connect with their communities and meet organizational goals.

Whether you’re a Twitter novice or tweeting pro, there are always ways to improve your presence on the microblogging service. Here are five ways to make your Twitter stream more valuable and dynamic for followers.

1. Get Visual

A sampling of photos recently tweeted by Gregory’s Coffee

If you’re at a loss for words, try sharing pictures or videos instead. Multimedia adds a new layer to your tweets and lets followers into your business’s otherwise-unknown world.

Gregory’s Coffee, an espresso bar with three locations in New York City, operates a lively Twitter stream, loaded with behind-the-scenes photos of latte art, pastries and employees. The photos give the coffee shop a warm and cozy persona, inviting tweeps to venture over to the shop for a nice cup o’ Joe.

Brands are using photo sharing apps in creative ways to bring fans closer to the action. Using apps, like Instagram and PicPlz, smartphone photographers can take advantage of photo-editing tools, including filters, that can make any picture look more interesting.

2. Get Physical

Social technologies such as Twitter aim to connect people. But the digital world has, in some cases, made it more challenging to genuinely connect with those around us. At tech events, for example, it’s not uncommon to see a group of people standing in a circle, tapping away on their smartphones. Business people should be cognizant of how they are using social media and understand if their behaviors are hurting or benefiting their relationships.

One way to use Twitter for physically connecting with colleagues and customers is to tweet out when employees or reps are attending industry events or making appearances at related venues. Such tweets invite real-life interaction.

The GEM Hotel, a boutique hotel with three locations in New York City, maintains an active presence on Foursquare, checking in to nearby venues that embody the lifestyle of a GEM patron. The hotel occasionally shares its checkins via Twitter and automatically tweets when it “becomes mayor” or unlocks a badge on Foursquare, adding a bit of playfulness and humanity to its Twitter stream.

3. Get Personal

With humble beginnings, many small businesses live on their stories. Talk to a small business owner, and you’ll likely discover a passionate individual who is happy to share every small detail about his or her company’s founding. You’ll learn where it all began, what the founding idea was, how the company grew throughout the years and what unexpected lessons were learned along the way.

In the spirit of that small-time, homey feeling, small businesses on Twitter can tweet about family events, employee softball tournaments and personal anecdotes. There’s a fine line between adding a personal touch and going overboard, though. Boloco, a Boston-based burrito chain that has grown substantially since its first opening in 1997, understands that balance.

Boloco’s Twitter stream is mainly composed of tweets to individuals. Tweet after tweet, marketing maven Sara Steele-Rogers and CEO John Pepper answer questions for and converse with Boloco fans. The two add a more personal touch, though, when special occasions arise. For example, a couple recently got engaged at a Boloco location — and the team was quick to congratulate the love birds on Twitter. Tweets such as this add a personal and intimate flair that showcases a business’s appreciation for its fans.

4. Get Inspired

It’s difficult to be creative all the time — when you’re in a linguistic rut, turn to other tweeters for inspiration. For small businesses, the first stop should always be those who are tweeting about you. When a jewel of an @mention appears, retweet it. Besides sharing a customer’s positive story with your followers, you’ll also be empowering that tweeter. It’s a great feeling when a brand you admire acknowledges your tweet with a simple retweet.

Trapp Family Lodge, a 2,500-acre resort in Stowe, Vermont, spends most of its Twitter stream on retweeting satisfied guests and upcoming visitors. When a user posts a image from the estate or calls out a great experience, you’re sure to find it on the Trapp Family Lodge Twitter account. Such tweets also double as customer reviews for the company, which can drive your business even more.

5. Get Smart

Twitter is all about value — users want value out of the accounts they’re following. Value can come in the form of exclusive deals, contests and even expertise. While deals and contests may take a bit more legwork to get off the ground, expertise is something that any small business owner or rep should be able to share at the drop of a hat.

Face Place, a spa with locations in Los Angeles and New York, dedicates its Twitter stream to providing daily skin care tips. Most recently, the spa has tweeted about makeup-removal tips, how blood sugar levels affect complexion and which foods are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which are great for your skin.

Try spicing up your Twitter stream with tips and trivia related to your business. Your followers will appreciate the random facts you’re providing and tune in for the next tidbit.

eCommerce Spending BIG Money

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The amount of money that LivingSocial and Groupon are spending to dominate eCommerce retail shopping in the social networking world is just mind blowing.

The following is a reprint from Mashable:

A few days after Groupon locked in a Super Bowl ad, LivingSocial has responded by purchasing a pre-game spot.

LivingSocial hired Richmond, Virginia-based ad shop The Martin Agency back in November, but hadn’t previously announced the relationship. The 30-second ad will feature a guy who uses LivingSocial and “goes through a deal addiction.” Further details are not available. LivingSocial’s pre-game Super Bowl buy will be augmented with the purchase of three Academy Award-related spots.

The move comes after Groupon earlier this week confirmed that it had bought a spot during this year’s Super Bowl and is running ads before and after the game. Groupon is working with Crispin Porter & Bogusky, the agency perhaps best known for its Burger King ads.

The infusion of ad dollars signals the latest front between the two biggest players in the fast-growing online group buying category. Groupon currently claims more than 44 million subscribers, while LivingSocial’s 
are in the range of 16 million. Update: A LivingSocial rep says the number is now around 20 million.

But LivingSocial, which received a $175 million investment from Amazon in December, is a feisty competitor. Last month, the company leveraged its Amazon relationship by offering a $20 Amazon gift card for $10. After that, LivingSocial’s traffic jumped 80%.

The entry of Groupon into the Super Bowl and LivingSocial before the game also displays a coming of age for social media firms, but offers a stark contrast to the 1999 and 2000 Super Bowls, which were full of then-hot dot-com companies like Pets.com and Epidemic.com that went belly-up not long afterwards. This time around, soon-to-IPO companies like Facebook and LinkedIn are sitting the game out.

KaChing KaChing Deals of the Day

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Check the deals of the day tab for three deals each day, 7 days a week.

Then compare the price with everyone else.

Shop for the deals of the day each day.

Find something you want or need.

Order just one thing.

You decide.

Drop me a note and let me know.

KaChing KaChing Inc – AdJuice