Groupon has postponed its IPO roadshow and is re-evaluating the timing of its IPO on a “week by week” basis, according to The Wall Street Journal. To us, the delay is not really a surprise. The company has been hit…
I’ve been intrigued by AmEx’s sponsored ads on Facebook promising $5 off for a $20 purchase at Whole Foods. So I signed up for AmEx’s program, which is a JV with Foursquare. Signing up for the program is a little…
Angie’s List issued an S-1 this week as it seeks to raise $75 million from an IPO. The S-1 is full of details about the 16-year-old service reviews company. Its massive, $60 million national ad campaign over the past 18…
Facebook and Yelp are downsizing their separate deals initiatives after launching them with some fanfare. Facebook is now limiting its deals to users who check in to businesses, and Yelp is sharply reducing the number of deals it features, while…
Should we be mentioning AmazonLocal in the same list of erstwhile “Groupon killers” as Facebook Deals, Google Offers, AT&T offers and others? As the online retail giant launches its 30th local site -- starting in Boise in June and now…
Fresh on the heels of the sale of Backyard, a local offers company to Pixelfish, entrepreneur Steve Espinosa has assembled a new team to develop “Appetizer,” a mobile-centric service that enables restaurants to offer instant deals via push notifications. Using…
The transfer of reward points and offers from print receipts and clipped newspaper pages to the cloud is expected to be a big part of promotional media’s next wave. But some merchants seem to be deliberately dragging their feet. CVS,…
SinglePlatform, which places restaurant search info such as menus, specials and photos on search engines and social and mobile media, has raised $3.25 million. The new raise is led by DFJ Gotham Ventures with participation from New World Ventures, First…
The appeal of real-time promotions allowing SMBs to add or update a sale or special offer on the fly is fairly apparent. It is a segment that’s been chased after by such players as Google, Yext and others. Add Chalkboard…
Specialized verticals are a major part of the new marketplaces environment. One vertical we like is TeachStreet, a portal that helps consumers find teachers, and then helps sign them up and process payments. Along the same lines is TakeLessons, a…
Internet display and text advertising are great. But nothing really matches video for engagement and open rates. A number of players are specializing in SMB video. A new company, Webshoz (pronounced “Web shows”) is focused on presenting an onscreen “bar”…
Groupon got a flying jump investing in overseas properties that have basically cloned its daily deal concept and set up local operations. International now accounts for 54 percent of Groupon’s revenues, according to the S-1 it filed with the SEC…
Google has acquired Dealmap, a deals aggregator and exchange, and will presumably use it to complement its own sourcing of deals for Google Offers, the daily deal site now in New York, the Bay Area and Portland and coming soon…
Gannett has now publicly announced that it has expanded its DealChicken platform to 10 to 15 markets, and will be in 57 markets where it has newspapers and/or TV stations. The company obviously enters a crowded marketplace, but will likely…
Businesses do really well online when they create “events” -- as local promotion companies ranging from Zvents to Active.com have discovered. Home Depot has classes. Those are events. Brew pubs have free samples. Those are events, too. And so are…
The new breed of lead providers for services appears to have slowed down. While Angie’s List is all over the air waves, building its consumer base for an expected IPO, and ServiceMagic is performing well for IAC, and expanding, not…
When you get beyond the limited form factor of mobile, it really turns out to be a better platform for creating, managing and bidding on used goods, says Dan Zheng, a cofounder of EggDropApp, a new mobile-based auction service. Mobile…
While deals are getting most of the attention right now, coupons remain a substantially larger player in the promotions business, says Steven Boal, CEO of Coupons.com, who was keynoting at BIA/Kelsey’s Deals 3D conference this week in San Francisco. Boal…
Deals are more than a one off when combined with merchant services such as mobile payment processing and scheduling, according to panelists at BIA/Kelsey’s Deals 3D conference in San Francisco today. Daily deal merchants can get a higher rate of…
Media companies are beginning to strongly leverage their databases and promotional capabilities to push deals, according to several panelists at BIA/Kelsey's Deals 3D conference today in San Francisco. Radio stations, for instance, haven’t really cashed in with online opportunities, but…
