NextJump has launched a beta version of OO.com, a consumer-facing destination site that seeks to leverage its relationships with merchants, national marketers and local marketing entities including LivingSocial (deals), Restaurant.com (restaurant deals) and now Grubhub (restaurant order out). The site…
Ease of transaction, rewards and “exclusives” will be key to the next generation of deals, and the credit card companies are determined to play a major role. MasterCard is working with NextJump for a special rewards programs, and has a…
The Deals space is so hot, yet there are many unanswered questions about it. We know it will be big, but who really knows what it is going to look like 18 months from now? With that in mind, we…
With Groupon going public, the promotions space is getting tremendously revved up. Hoping to get in on the action are promotional relatives of the deals space, including providers of grocery “cents off” coupons, retail weekly sales (circulars), retail rewards and…
Just Dial, a local search engine company in India, raised approximately $10 million from SAP Ventures and Sequoia Capital Global Equities. The Mumbai-based firm was founded by VSS Mani in 1996 to connect potential buyers of products and services with small businesses.…
So, do we buy shares in Groupon? We don’t provide investment advice, of course, but as we consider its prospects from a non-investment angle, we’ll be watching for answers to the following eight questions – none of which, unsurprisingly, is…
NBC’s local websites for its 10 owned and operated stations have effectively lowered the average age of users from 44 to 33, boosted the average time spent on site to 12 minutes, and grown its user base to 10 million…
The purchase funnel that takes consumers from awareness to transaction and retention has been an article of faith among marketers for many years. TV advertising, for instance, is “upper funnel.” Yellow Pages, at the point of sales consideration, has been…
People tend to want to hear the good news first, but let’s start with the opposite. As we near the halfway point of the year, reports from the local radio industry reveal that growth has slowed more than expected. BIA/Kelsey…
Reply has acquired MerchantCircle for $60 million in cash and stock in a deal that makes a big bet on SMB, vertical and social marketing. The deal, which should be completed in Q3, brings MerchantCircle’s list of 1.6 million SMBs…
Businesses should post on their Facebook page three times a week. That’s the word from Emily White, Facebook’s director of local. In an interview with USA Today, White says: "The general rule is, you're in pretty good shape if you're…
Yodle, a third-party SMB reseller, announced yesterday that it acquired ProfitFuel, a company that provides search engine optimization services to small businesses, for an undisclosed sum. David Rubin, previously CEO of Profitfuel, will now join Yodle as senior vice president…
SignPost, an eight person New York-based deals company that has received $1 million of seed funding from Google Ventures and others, is banking on “deal scouts” to originate time-sensitive deals with local merchants and services. The company has deals available…
Auctions have influenced a more dynamic shopping environment, but aren’t very important and have ended up as just a niche shopping format, argues James Surowiecki in the June Wired (article not posted). Even on eBay, they just make up 31…
Yell Group announced its full-year 2011 results this week (its year ends March 31), with digital media revenues growing by 9.4 percent from last year. CEO Mike Pocock projected during the full-year earnings call that by 2015, 75 percent of Yell's…
There are some occasions when you need to hire someone right away. At least that’s the hypothesis of Ginjex: The availability engine,” a new ad-supported U.K. directory that focuses on real-time hiring. Launched by Mark Riley, a former exec with…
Groupon is moving past deal a day with a Quiznos deal on Wednesdays that will issue an eight "signature sandwich" punch card to users for $26 -- roughly half off the $51.92 maximum value. Maybe buyers will indulge in some…
Dealfind, a Toronto-based daily deal site, has raised $31 million as it strives for rapid growth to reach 100 markets in Canada and the U.S. The site, which has sold 806,199 vouchers since its launch in 2009, is currently operating…
Over the past year, American Express has embarked on a series of initiatives centered on digital advertising intelligence for SMBs. These include SearchManager (via Clickable) for SEM and multiple social media experiments with Facebook and Foursquare. Now, its small business-focused…
2010 was a dismal year for the New Zealand branch of Deutsche Bank after exposure to the Yellow Pages Group restructuring. The KPMG Financial Institutions Performance Survey issued last week shows that Deutsche ranked at the bottom out of 10…
