Groupon – Social Coupons

Another interesting case for crowd-demand on the web, Groupon is a high-value, daily coupon that becomes available to users in a specific urban area only if enough people sign up for it.

The coupons are typically a 50% off deal on something to eat, do, or enjoy in your city — a much sweeter deal than a typical coupon.  They only come to fruition if enough people sign up.

People can also comment on the coupons on the site, starting consumer conversations.  Like other social networks, it’s important to make sure you’re playing to your audience.  A recent Blockbuster coupon wasn’t quite a great deal and it received a negative response from users.  (see Ad Age article on Groupon).

That said, this could be an interesting online venue for a client to explore, if we had something that would fit well with the space.

Younicorn me

Just because it’s one of those days. Who doesn’t love a unicorn? Send a Christmas unicorn to your friends. Happy Holidays !

And just because….43 million views?!! WTF

Bit.ly TV

Bit.ly labs has launched Bit.ly TV: See what videos people are tweeting most.

Digital magazine of the future?

Mag+ is a concept video developed by Bonnier that shows how digital magazines in the future could work

If there is a will, there is a way…

An 80 year-old grandma Twitters with pen-and-paper using a fax machine and service called “Celery.” She writes the message she wants to tweet and faxes it to the service to update for her. Bless!

Wave debate

Here’s a demo of Google Wave being used in Copenhagen by a group of young people to virtually collaborate on a climate change debate.

Dear Steve…

Approve our iPhone app please! A clever idea by F&B to get attention for an iPhone app they have developed for one of their clients – SVT, a TV station in Sweden. The app has not yet been approved by Apple for the app store, so they are petitioning for it to be accepted via this site.

Yipit

Yipit is a new service that analyzes your check-ins on Foursquare (i.e places that you go to in the ‘physical’ world) to send you nearby deals via your digital device – i.e mobile phone. I don’t use Foursquare myself but I am using Gowalla (because I like the interface more) and would love to have something similar to try out.

QR Twitter updates

Can you think of any interesting ways to use this little tool developed by BBH labs? It’s a tool that lets you send a Tweet via a QR code.

Simply shoot the QR code (below) with a QR code reader on your phone and have a tweet ready to send. I think this would be great for scavenger hunts for example. QR codes could be placed strategically in different places and by you snapping a picture of it will tweet its location, set off a clue for the next person or even be your ‘claim’ to a prize simply by finding the code first. What do you think?

Ebay Mobile Boutique

Nice idea for Ebay to take their brand offline with this traveling Ebay Holiday Mobile boutique.