Bing is appealing to fans of daily deal sites with the launch of Bing Offers, a one-stop shop for online deals and coupons. Boasting one of the largest collections of local deals on the web, Bing Offers pulls deals from various partner sites. Users can search by business name, category or keyword to locate specific deals, or filter results by location or category to see offers for various products and services, including food, activity, health and fitness, beauty, travel and retail deals. While the announcement on the Bing Search Blog does not name specific deal providers, it does of [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Retail | Groupon | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Shopping & Cashback

Late last week Groupon announced that it was going to make a growing inventory of less perishable deals accessible to consumers. Calling this the Groupon "Local Marketplace" the new functionality is live in Chicago and New York, soon to be available across Groupon cities: In the last year, we’ve increased our North American selection of active deals by nearly 13 times, to more than 27,000 at the end of Q3. As of today, we’ve opened the doors so you can search and browse that inventory of deals, both daily deals and real-time Now! deals. Yes, you can actually type in a search (“pizza,” [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Groupon | Top News

Uptake was an ambitious travel site that never quite broke through. It used social data and sentiment analysis to try and provide better travel discovery and decision support to its users. Originally called Kango, we wrote about the site in 2008 when it relaunched as Uptake. AllThingsD today reported that Uptake had been acquired by Groupon for something in the "teens of millions" (between $10 and $20). The company raised roughly $14 million from venture capital inventors, so it was basically a "break even" transaction. Apparently Groupon wanted the team and will integrate most of the ke [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Groupon | Search Engines: Travel Search Engines

Thinking about being found the old-fashioned yet high-tech way, a coupon through a daily deals service? Stats say these may bring in new business but not necessarily repeat customers. Consumers do like them, nearly half online use the sites and of those, 60% get emailed offers from two or more per day. The people at BuySellAds have assembled these and other stats from a variety of resources into the infographic below: Want this infographic for yourself? You'll find it here: The Daily Deal Divide. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Offers | Groupon | Infographics | Search Engines: Deals & Coupon Search Engines

Bing has put considerable effort in the past several months into building out its deals content. First Bing introduced third party deals via its mobile website. It then created a retail-centric deals portal within Bing Shopping. More recently Microsoft added self-service group buying deals to the Bing Business Portal. And now there's a new product in Microsoft's deals mix: Bing Deals. (It was first noticed by TechCrunch.) It's a more "traditional," email-based daily deal offering vs. the company's earlier deal products and efforts (which are still ongoing). The new daily deals email capabil [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Offers | Groupon | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Microsoft: Bing Mobile | Top News

Groupon's purchase of Pelago, the parent company of Whrrl, offers an interesting glimpse into what the local daily deals powerhouse might be up to next. With the acquisition, which was for an undisclosed amount, Groupon gets a team that's been focused on consumer check-ins at local businesses and offering relevant suggestions -- similar to the area that players like Foursquare and Gowalla are focused on. Whrrl also allowed consumers to join affinity groups and built brand communities around interests, such as the Del Monte Kibbles & Bits "I love dogs" group. Matching that expertise w [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Groupon | Top News

Google has confirmed that it is preparing a service called "Google Offers," designed to compete with the popular social buying site Groupon. Google has told Search Engine Land: Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and  participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program. This  initiative is part of an ongoing effort at Google to make new products, such as the recent Offer Ads beta, that connect businesses with  customers in new ways. We do not have more details to share at this time, but will keep you posted. Mashable broke the news [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Google: Offers | Groupon | Top News

Local advertising provider Yext has spearheaded the launch of a Google-like "tags" product that receives distribution across a vast array of local sites including Yelp, Yahoo, Mapquest, Superpages, Topix, Patch, Citysearch and others. It's being characterized as an "anti-Google alliance." That's not exactly correct. As a practical matter it gives advertisers a way to run promotions across what is in effect a new local ad network, which in the aggregate constitutes a massive number of search queries and impressions. The program is the brainchild of Howard Lerman, Yext's CEO. In the wake of G [...]

Related Topics: 1 | Channel: SEM | Google: Maps & Local | Groupon | Search Ads: Pay Per Call | Top News

Whew. The rumors of a Google-Groupon deal are getting hotter. Yesterday, there was a report the deal was done for $2 billion. Today, there are two reports that negotiations continue with a price of $5 to $6 billion being discussed. Back on November 19, the first report of a Google-Groupon deal came out from Kara Swisher at AllThingsD. Swisher reported a price well above $2 to $3 billion was being discussed.  Yesterday, Vator.tv reported that the acquisition was actually complete, done for $2.5 billion. Today, the New York Times reports that "people with direct knowledge" say a deal i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Acquisitions | Google: Business Issues | Groupon | Top News

Over the past week, there has been many rumors that Google would be making a buy-out offer to Groupon, the popular local deals site. Those rumors have heated up this morning, with Vator.tv reporting the deal has closed, with Google buying Groupon for $2.5 billion. Google or Groupon has yet to confirm the deal but these rumors seem to be pretty legit. TechCrunch documented tweets between Andrew Mason, CEO and founder of Groupon and Google's M&A lead Neeraj Arora in September possibly talking about deals between the two companies. VatorNews said their insider details come from an unna [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Business Issues | Google: Partnerships | Groupon

Kara Swisher reports Google is looking at Groupon as a possible acquisition. She said she has "multiple sources" close to the deal that say Google is very interesting in making a bid on Groupon. Google did not confirm the rumors but did reply to Kara's press request in Google fashion: Per usual, we don’t comment on rumor or speculation. If we did we’d be busy 24/7! Groupon is a local deals coupon site that has grown in popularity. Clone after clone has been created trying to replicate the model. To learn more about Groupon, see our article named A Look At Social Shopping With Grou [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Google: Business Issues | Groupon | Search Engines: Shopping Search Engines | Search Engines: Social Search Engines | Top News

One of the newer aspects of social media that is gaining traction is social shopping with sites like Groupon. These group deal websites offer discount coupons for goods or services to businesses in medium to large metro areas across the United States. In some cases, these offers have been extremely popular with customers and helped drive a lot of traffic to local businesses, but in other cases local businesses have lost thousands of dollars, and suffered negative social media side effects. The way Groupon works is to offer a discount on a product or service for a specific metropolitan area. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Groupon | Search & Social