Keeping Your Information Private

The recent Digital Deal Seeker Index* conducted on behalf of Sudo indicates that 84 percent of digital shoppers in the US would be extremely worried or somewhat worried if deal sites collected their personal information. According to Cornell University School of Law, the government, businesses and even financial institutions all commit the act. A staggering 64 percent of index respondents were unaware that their personal information was collected and used by their trusted deal and coupon sites.

Sudo, available on both iOS and Android-powered phones, lets users control what pieces of their personal information are shared with merchants and businesses, in exchange for access to the most locally relevant and desired deals. In turn, users rid their inboxes of poorly targeted ads, and their personal identities always remains anonymous with unique Sudo accounts.

“People today live on the go, and deals should be instantaneous and customized to meet their wants and needs, not a source of frustration or a way to be taken advantage of,” said Co-founder, Mark Lucas. “Our app provides thousands of aggravated discount seekers with a solution that offers security, a way to reduce inbox clutter and financial benefit.”

 Eliminating Daily Deal Fatigue

In addition to privacy concerns, the majority of online shoppers indicate frustration with e-mail deal and discount sources. Two-thirds of consumers surveyed said too frequent e-mail deals annoy them; one in five people said emails drive them crazy and flood their inboxes. Sudo is designed to solve this problem by aggregating deals and sharing only the most relevant deals – when users want them.

 When using the Sudo app, consumers enter their interests, purchasing intents, and geographic locations, and receive only deals and discounts that are the most applicable – at specified times and from one source. Nearly half of digital shoppers (47 percent) subscribe to one or two deal, discount or coupon sites, and another third (31 percent) subscribe to three or more. By consolidating deals and discounts in a hyper-targeted way, Sudo prevents the need for numerous daily email subscriptions.

 Sudo Co-founder Devin Holdraker states, “The experience of obtaining and enjoying deals is significantly improved with Sudo. Now, if you’re at work and want to grab a quick lunch, all you have to do is tell the app where you are and what you want. In turn, Sudo will offer you meal deals and discounts close by. This concept takes away the pain and process of other services.”

 Cash for Consumers – and Merchants

In typical daily deal models, the company facilitating the merchant deal captures a majority of the profit. Most online shoppers surveyed (79 percent) only think they are getting a good deal through daily deal and discount sites “sometimes.” In Sudo’s model, the broken supply chain is eliminated and the profit is shared back with users – directly to their bank accounts. Every transaction made with Sudo rewards users with up to 6% back, all for deals or discounts they are using anyway.

 Sudo is a win-win for both consumers and merchants. While user information remains private, retailers can capitalize on and target potential customers seeking out deals in their area. Sudo allows merchants to re-market to customers drawn in through their service by offering more customized and relevant deals. Businesses also keep more revenue with Sudo than with normal discount providers.

 Additional Survey Findings

• ·               Despite the fact that financial institutions offer users a privacy policy stating otherwise, 65 percent of digital shoppers do not think banks advertise specifically to them
• ·               Cash is king – 67 percent of surveyed Americans would knowingly share their personal information to save a few dollars on a purchase
• ·               ‘Liking’ or ‘following’ companies is about more than interest; 63 percent of respondents track companies on social media channels for the sole purpose of obtaining discounts on their goods or service\

Survey Methodology

* The referenced Digital Deal Seeker Index survey was conducted online by Survey Monkey March 14–19, 2013. It presents findings from a representative sample of 575 women and men ages 18–55 who own a Smartphone, shop online and use coupons or deals for purchases.

About Sudo

Based in Rochester, Sudo™ Inc. is focused on fixing the broken supply chain typically associated with online discount and deal offerings for consumers and merchants. Founded in 2012 by a group of talented engineers and marketers, Sudo strives to be at the forefront of open, honest privacy information, while offering financial incentives to its users, through innovative technology. More information about Sudo is available at www.goSudo.com. Sudo is available now for both iOS and Android-powered phones.

New Google+ Updates

Google added over 40 new features to their social network, Google+.  Ranked as the second most popular social network, Google+ has 190 million monthly active users, but it is still not as popular as other social communities like Facebook. Hopefully with 41 updates comes a more appealing, more competitive network. Software updates include changes to their Stream, Photos, and Hangouts.

Check out this infographic, from social media extension, that features shortcuts and tips on how to use Google+’s updated network

Source:

“If there’s a silver lining to leaving Groupon, it’s the opportunity to start something new,” Mason wrote. “I’ve accumulated a backlog of ideas over the last several years, my favorite of which I’ll be turning into a new company this fall.”

“As part of this, my wife and I are moving to San Francisco later this summer,” he said in the blog. (here)

Mason does, however, intend on keeping his Chicago residence.

Mason said on Thursday that he will be spending a day each week at start-up incubator Y-Combinator in coming months “to keep my brain from atrophying.”

In 2005, Y Combinator developed a new model of start-up funding. Twice a year they invest a small amount of money ($14-20k + an $80k note) in a large number of start-ups (most recently 46). The start=ups move to Silicon Valley for 3 months, during which the company works intensively with them to get the company into the best possible shape and refine their pitch to investors. Each cycle culminates in Demo Day, when the start-ups present to a large audience of investors. But YC doesn’t end on Demo Day. The company and the YC alumni network continue to help founders for the life of their company, and beyond.

Since 2005 Y Combinator funded over 500 start-ups, including Loopt, Reddit, Clustrix, Wufoo,Scribd, Xobni, Omgpop, Weebly, Songkick, Disqus, Dropbox, Twitch, Heroku,A Thinking Ape, Machine Zone, Airbnb, Heyzap, Cloudkick, WePay, Bump, Stripe,CarWoo, Mixpanel, Cardpool, Optimizely, AeroFS, E la Carte, Hipmunk, PagerDuty,Meteor, Rap Genius, Codecademy, SocialCam, 42Floors, and Exec.

Source: Reuters

1. Keep it short! Tweets below 100 characters, get a 21% higher interaction rate.
2. Use plenty of photos and videos - 40% of people prefer to respond to images over text
3. Ask your audience to share your content – don’t be shy: Tweets with requests for “re-tweets” generate 23-times higher share rate. 

Keep reading for all of the 7 tips to start building a loyal following on Twitter, or other social media.

Source: Business Insider

While Mason has been out of sight since his departure from daily deal site, he decided to update everyone on what he’s been up to since he left. He’s been galavanting around the world, losing weight, will become a part-time partner at Y Combinator, and plans to start a company with the best of his bottled-up ideas from the last seven years.

His really goal? To inspire the youth of America. He writes:

“I managed over 12,000 people at Groupon, most under the age of 25.  One thing that surprised me was that many would arrive at orientation with minimal understanding of basic business wisdom.  ”Haven’t you read any business books?  Good to Great? Winning? The One Minute Manager?” I’d ask.  ”Business books? Not really our thing,” was the typical response. I came to realize that there was a real need to present business wisdom in a format that is more accessible to the younger generation.”

Instead of going on a campus speaking tour or releasing a book, Mason has decided to put his words into sound. TechCrunch spoke to Mason who said album is real, not a stunt like quite a few things past. For instance, Grouspawn, or when he said he was voluntarily leaving Groupon to spend more time with his family. Andrew did major in music at Northwestern, after all.

”I spent a week in LA earlier this month recording Hardly Workin’, a seven song album of motivational business music targeted at people newly entering the workforce.  These songs will help young people understand some of the ideas that I’ve found to be a key part of becoming a productive and effective employee.  I’m really happy with the results and look forward to sharing them as soon as I figure out how to load music onto iTunes, hopefully in the next few weeks.”

Source: TechCrunch

Research shows that best practices for restaurateurs to help ensure daily deal success include:

• Prepare staff to focus on customer service, look for upsell opportunities and track offer redemption
• Schedule daily deal timing based on business needs and seasonality
• Estimate and understand the promotion’s impact on profitability
• Measure success by using free tools provided by daily deal company
• Encourage repeat visitors with a customer loyalty program

Results from the recent online survey conducted by Ipsos MediaCT showed restaurateurs who had successful daily deal experiences stood out as experimental marketers that use a variety of different channels and tactics to drive customer acquisition and retention:

• 94 percent engage with customers via social media (vs. 75 percent of non-daily deal users)
• 77 percent have run more than one daily deal
• 73 percent connect with customers via email (vs. 59 percent of non-daily deal users)
• 79 percent monitor online review sites to see what others are saying about their business (vs. 68 percent of non-daily deal users)
• 71 percent have promoted their business with traditional newspaper and magazine ads (vs. 58 percent of non-daily deal users)

“Daily deals remain a very popular form of marketing for our members, and these are some important steps restaurateurs can take to help ensure a greater return on their investment,” said Julia Kanouse, VP, Strategic Marketing, National Restaurant Association.

“This study reveals how daily deals and the analytical tools that Groupon provides have become a powerful and measurable part of an active restaurateur’s marketing mix,” said Sanjay Gupta, VP, Merchant Marketing, Groupon.

Groupon and the National Restaurant Association have an ongoing partnership to provide restaurateurs with educational content and important marketing resources to help their businesses grow. This content will reside onwww.grouponworks.com and http://www.restaurant.org.

The survey of 513 restaurant decision-makers was conducted by Ipsos MediaCT between February – March 2013 and was commissioned by Groupon. The data shown here focuses primarily on the total restaurateur daily deals users subgroup of n=152 and restaurateurs that were successful with daily deals n=78. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to, coverage error and measurement error. Additional research includes the Groupon Merchant Satisfaction Study run continuously by ForeSee.

About National Restaurant Association

Founded in 1919, the National Restaurant Association is the leading business association for the restaurant industry, which comprises 980,000 restaurant and foodservice outlets and a workforce of more than 13 million employees. We represent the industry in Washington, D.C., and advocate on its behalf. We operate the industry’s largest trade show (NRA Show May 18-21, 2013, in Chicago); leading food safety training and certification program (ServSafe); unique career-building high school program (the NRAEF’s ProStart); as well as the Kids LiveWell program promoting healthful kids’ menu options. For more information, visit Restaurant.org and find us on Twitter @WeRRestaurants, Facebook andYouTube.

About Groupon

Groupon (NASDAQ: GRPN) is a global leader in local commerce, making it easy for people around the world to search and discover great businesses at unbeatable prices. Groupon is reinventing the traditional small business world by providing merchants with a suite of products and services, including customizable deals, payments processingcapabilities and point-of-sale solutions to help them attract more customers and run their operations more effectively. By leveraging the company’s global relationships and scale, Groupon offers consumers incredible deals on the best stuff to eat, see, do, and buy in 48 countries. With Groupon, shoppers discover the best a city has to offer with Groupon Local, enjoy vacations with Groupon Getaways, and find a curated selection of electronics, fashion, home furnishings and more with Groupon Goods. To subscribe to Groupon emails, visit www.Groupon.com. To learn more about the company’s merchant solutions and how to work with Groupon, visit www.GrouponWorks.com.

Groupon will be at the National Restaurant Association Show May 18–21.

Source: Press Release

MasterPass has joined the ranks of other digital wallets around the web, including Google Wallet and Apple’s Passport to provide customers with the future of digital payments. The introduction of MasterPass happened this past February. MasterCard’s new payment venture will allow users to shop and make a payments on their phone, tablet, PC or in a store with one simple experience.  This future is a reality now with MasterPass live in Australia, Canada and the U.S.

MasterCard recently send why they are focusing on this space in a blog entry, “For us, it’s certainly not because it’s the current “bright shiny penny” or the pursuit of innovation for innovation sake.  It’s about understanding consumers and how the emerging digital lifestyle will influence habit and how consumers will buy.  At the center of this new digital lifestyle is the drive by consumers to be connected “24/7″ and to have access to insights before, during and after they buy in both the physical and digital worlds.”

LivingSocial is on of up to 170+ merchants that are live in the U.S. since MasterPass was announced in February.

“We know consumers simply want to purchase the items or services they want, and don’t want to worry about the payments.  That’s the promise of MasterPass and what we’re working with merchants and issuers to deliver each day,” MasterCard explained in a recent blog post.

Source: Press Release

DealHijack.com looks at deal sites located in both the US and Canada and combines the best deals for Hijack visitors to find and review.

When deal seekers visit the Hijack site, they see a home page which features large boxes that represent each deal. Within each box is a graphic image of the item being offered at a discount, the price of the item and a listing of the original value, the discount and the amount the consumer saves by purchasing the item. Interested guests then click on any of the deals featured takes the consumer to a page dedicated solely to that product where they can learn more and the purchase directly from the site.

Visitors can sort through deals in a few different ways. When they come to the site visitors will find four clearly marked tabs along the top that allow them to sort the deals by time left, amount of the discount, price and popularity. Guests also have the opportunity to sign up for the informative and free daily newsletter that keeps fans of the site up to date on the many new deals being posted. 

A search option at the top allows users to quickly find and locate what they are looking for. For instance users can search for “sushi”, and all sushi related deals only will be displayed.

Source: Press Release

Under the new co-CEOs, Eric Lefkofsky and Ted Leonsis, Groupons business is stabilizing. Recently, their stock recovered to roughly  $7 a share. And even though the company has experienced some trouble, Groupon is still (sort of) growing its revenue (+8% year over year in Q1) and still generating positive operating income ($21 million in Q1).

Currently, the plan is that the duo will continue to run it for at least another couple of months until a new CEO is hired. Recently, they sat down with Business Insider to explain their vision, the search for a new CEO and more.

Big Dreams

According to BI, Groupon is looking to be more than just daily deals and e-mail offers, the daily deal company is looking to become a huge player in  mobile local commerce, they would like to be Amazon or eBay of local. In addition, Groupon wants to be a go to mobile destination when consumers are searching for everyday deals and discounts on a full range of products and services wherever they happen to be. According to BI, the company will eventually offer deals and discounts with merchant clients in many more categories of products and services than it does today.

Groupon generated about $2.5 billion of revenue last year.  Leonsis believes the company can eventually generate $100 billion of revenue per year, BI has reported.

To put this number in perspective, Amazon generated $61 billion of revenue last year. Walmart generated $470 billion.

There’s a new CEO out there.. Somewhere

Groupon has not yet committed to a search firm in order to find and hire a new CEO. According to BI, they will begin their search after the next board meeting in June.

Lefkofsky and Leonsis said they haven’t hired a new CEO yet because they wanted to run the company for a while to be sure they knew what kind of CEO they wanted to hire. The new CEO will not bring the “vision” for Groupon. The vision is already there. The new CEO will either buy into the existing vision, or he or she will presumably have a short stay at the company, BI reported.

Overseas isn’t forgotten

Groupon’s U.S. business has been slow to grow recently but international business has imploded. Business Insider quoted Lefkofsky and Leonsis explaining that they don’t think the international business is hopeless, however. Eventually, they think, it will stabilize and then begin to grow again.

The final word

According to Business Insider, if Groupon can grow to $10 billion of revenue, let alone the $100 billion that Co-CEO Leonsis mentioned, Groupon’s shareholders should be amply rewarded. (The company’s market value is currently about $5 billion).

The new CEO will be very important to the recovering company, as will the return of international business. The daily deal comapny will have to prove that it can evolve into a destination for consumer-driven commerce, rather than a pushy email deals company.

Source: Business Insider

The event, which actually wasn’t that bad of a deal, gave purchasers an opportunity to invited a friend to a private good event, which is set to being at 6 p.m. on Friday June 14. Purchasers can then chow down on appetizers and enjoy cocktails before good editor-in-cheif, Gwyneth Paltrow proceeds with a cooking demonstration. Afterwards attendees will leave with a signed cookbook. Airfare and car service are included.

Here are the details, according to Groupon’s deal:

Gwyneth Paltrow Meet n’ Greet at Private goop Event, Spa Pampering, and Swanky Dinner in NYC on June 14-16

Included in trip package:

•    Two-night stay in a junior suite at 4-star DoubleTree by Hilton Metropolitan New York, valid for check-in 6/14/13    •    Round-trip airfare from anywhere in the US or Canada to New York LaGuardia Airport (LGA)

    •    Tickets to a private event with goop including a meet and greet with Gwyneth Paltrow

    •    Spa treatments for two including hair conditioning, styling, spa manicures and pedicures

    •    One dinner for two at Bistro La Promenade

    •    Round-trip airport transfers to hotel

In the fall of 2008, Academy Award-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow launched a lifestyle web site called goop to chat about recipes, travel, food, and fashion. Fresh off being named the “World’s Most Beautiful Woman” by People Magazine, the star is hosting a private goop event in New York City for 60 attendees on June 14, where she’ll give a cooking demonstration and greet her fans. Not only will you meet Gwyneth, you’ll also dine at the Bistro La Promenade restaurant, get the star treatment at Great Jones Spa, and catch 40 winks stay at the 4-star DoubleTree by Hilton Metropolitan New York.

Private goop Event and Gwyneth Paltrow Meet n’ Greet

You and a friend are invited to the private goop event, which begins at 6 p.m. on Friday, June 14. You can munch on appetizers and sip cocktails before goop editor-in-chief Gwyneth Paltrow gives a cooking demonstration. You’ll leave with a signed cookbook.
Spa Treatments

The next day, you’ll visit Great Jones Spa for beautifying treatments including hair conditioning, styling, and a spa mani-pedi.

Dinner for Two

Later that evening, you’ll head to Chelsea’s London Terrace for dinner at Bistro La Promenade, helmed by Executive Chef Alain Allegretti. Known for its casual French cuisine, the restaurant has received praise from several media outlets including Eater, Zagat, and CBS. The New York Times relished Allegretti’s “harmonious and sophisticated plates on which each ingredient has been treated in a way calculated to coax forth the most flavor.”

Upscale Hotel Accommodations

On Friday and Saturday night, you’ll stay in a junior suite at the 4-star DoubleTree by Hilton Metropolitan New York, located in Midtown Manhattan, within walking distance of the Theater District and Times Square. The hotel’s recently renovated guest room feature flat-screen TVs and pillow-top mattresses.

The photos above depict the hotel and restaurant included in this deal. They are not affiliated with goop. Read the Fine Print for important info on travel dates and other restrictions.

Source: Business Insider