With Groupon Now, you are able to select a category that you are interested in purchasing and you are then presented with time based offerings in your area. Here is how the workflow progresses:

Step 1 – Select your location and the deal category

Groupon Now Category Options

Step 2: Select the specific deal that you are interested in.

Groupon Now Deal

Step 3: Pay for the purchase

Groupon Now Deal Purchase

Groupon Now’s benefits to retailers / merchants are two fold:

1. Merchants are able to provide offers that are counter cyclical to their normal demand cycles. So, if Tuesday afternoons are typically slow days, Groupon Now gives the merchant an opportunity to fill their excess capacity with a time sensitive offer. A major benefit is that existing customers revenues  are not cannibalized.
2. Merchants are able to provide more offers (ie. daily offers), something that is not possible with the existing Groupon structure.
3. The Groupon Now offering has a iPhone and Android apps allow purchasing while consumers are mobile, a perfect platform for triggering impulse buys.

So, the bottom line, I find Groupon’s product launch cycle impressive, and as the innovator, they make it difficult for copycat services to (1) keep up with their feature offerings, and (2) differentiate their own services. I still believe their valuation is too high given the competitive landscape, but for retailers, Groupon Now does provide an interesting new digital marketing opportunity.

1. Secure Social Profiles

Hootsuite’s recent launched of Secure Social Profiles is a fantastic new capability that can help prevent “brainless engagement”. Here is how they describe the update: “HootSuite’s new Secure Profiles feature prevents accidental updates by team members by requiring an additional confirmation step before sending.  Specifically designed for collaborative teams, with HootSuite Secure Profiles:

- Account owners can designate chosen social profiles as “Secure” for their designated team.

- Team members are prompted to confirm or cancel messages before broadcasting to secured profiles.

- Profiles are secured across platforms starting on web with iPhone, Android and Blackberry available shortly.

2. Distributed Security & Workflow

If you have multiple people working on your social media strategy and execution (like most of the companies that I work work with), being able to effectively manage access to accounts and coordinate work is critical. Hootsuite provides tools like multi-user collaboration without sharing passwords. Users can also be assigned tasks for basic workflow.

3. Reporting & Analytics

The latest Hootsuite release has introduced tremendous new reporting and analytics features. With over 30 reporting templates, Google Integration and Facebook Insights, Hootsuite does an excellent job of consolidating social media information from multiple channels, allowing for standardized presentation and analysis.

If you are evaluating new social media engagement and tools, Hootsuite needs to be in the conversation.

Why is this happening?  While social media is getting a larger % of corporate marketing budgets, those $$ are still finite and need to be allocated with focus. So, to get the best bang for the buck, you need to go where the most people are…….and that’s the Big 4 Social Media Networks.

Does this mean that it is impossible to build a large and vibrant social media community? Probably not, Digg, Delicious and MySpace have life and there are some up and comers like Quora. There are also specialty social media networks like JustMeans (Corporate Sustainability) that have the opportunity to built focused communities of interest.   However, the challenges are quite daunting.

A quick background: Groupon is a couponing or target direct marketing  / advertising program and so far they have done a good job. So such a good job, that there are a lot of copycats popping up all over the place….some new companies like Daily Deal / BuyWithMe [http://screencast.com/t/EwwrcGutUeq6] which has a tie in with Boston.com and a host of others.

So, there are 3 main reasons that turning down the multi-billion $ offer was a bad move:

Reason 1: Their Costs will rise…..Groupon’s model is based on acquiring email subscribers to receive their daily emails. Over the last week I have seen no less than 10 Groupon-like companies competing to get my email address. Most of these have been in local online sites……more advertisers = higher per acquisition costs.

Reason 2: Their % of Deal Revenues will drop as more competitors enter their markets. Why would a merchant agree to a 50:50 revenue split on 1,000 deals when a Groupon competitor can match the 1,000 deals with a 30:70 revenue split.

Reason 3: It is difficult to maintain high quality deals amid purchaser fatigue. Over the last week I have received deals for another Indian restaurant, a massage (still have not been able to schedule the last one I bought) and a bikini wax (not on my To Do list).

The bottom line: there are no barriers to entry in this market. Google is launching their own version and it is ripe for a Yellow Pages or Valassis to muscle into. There are also established companies like Rewards Network, which is a publicly traded company, that is launching http://www.idinedeals.com/. It will be interesting to see how things play out over the next 12 – 24 months.

Some other good analysis:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703787304575076001164243926.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-are-groupons-real-numbers-2010-4

Don’t get me wrong, winning an IMA award is extremely gratifying since you compete against the top national agencies and each site is rigorously evaluated.  However, I do wish that there was a sixth evaluation criteria called “Business Results”.  Here is some context on one of our IMA awards and how they are evaluated:

Websites receiving an overall score between 460 and 479 receive our Outstanding Achievement award. Websites receiving an overall score between 480 and 500 receive our Best in Class award.

Your individual scores are as follows:

Design: 93
Content: 95
Feature Functionality: 98
Usability: 98
Standards Compliance & Cross-Browser Compatibility: 97
———————-

Total: 481 / 500

What’s lacking in all the different website awards is a measurement of business value. Whether the measurement is leads, sales or advertising click-throughs, the success of a site must be quantitatively measured and improved over time. Our goal as strategists, marketers and web technologists is to drive business value and have an impact on business results. So, while winning awards is really nice, delivering websites, web applications, social media applications or mobile applications that exceed expectations, and having the quantitative results to prove their business effectiveness, is the truly gratifying part of working in digital strategy and interactive marketing.

The answer is Paper.li a fantastic aggregator of your Twitter content. Here is my personal Paper.li: http://paper.li/grahamlubie

Paper.li integrates with your Twitter account and displays, by topic, content that the people you follow have flagged as relevant. Very impressive, very useful and a great way to filter a day’s worth of information.

Goodbye Flash.

desiderata – by max ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann c.1920