Is LivingSocial Testing Indian Waters?

Groupon entered Indian market (with SoSasta acquisition), so it won’t be long before its competitor, LivingSocial enters the Indian market too. We just spotted an ad (Google adsense) that targets LivingSocial’s Bangalore landing page, i.e. www.livingsocial.com/Bengaluru. (you can see the ad on pretty much any page that targets ‘deals’ keyword, assuming that you are visiting the page from Indian IP for Google to deliver these ads to you).

Unfortunately, the page doesn’t really exist (you end up giving away your email id to LivingSocial) and there are no deal/details on the page (except for a custom logo).

Given that Groupon’s SoSasta acquisition has been a namesake Groupon acquisition, does it really make sense for LivingSocial to enter a new territory which brings in newer ways of closing deals? That is, the standard telesales route doesn’t really work in India and Groupon India, for whatever it is worth hasn’t really done any different job vis-à-vis several other Groupon clones that exist in India (read: The Super Duper List of Groupon Clones in India [28 and counting]).

As far as LivingSocial is concerned, it seems like they are testing waters and collecting email ids for future use.

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India's Largest Startup Event, UnPluggd Is Back (Mindblowing Content + Exiciting Startup Demos » July 9th, Bangalore)

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Manage your online identity with Google’s “Me on the Web”

Online privacy is a hot topic lately with companies coming under fire from regulatory authorities on how personal information of people is available or displayed on the internet. The open nature of the internet has definitely made the world’s information more accessible to users worldwide but this comes at a heavy cost of privacy.

The thing to note here is that your identity on the internet is not just what you post about yourself but also by what others post about you. Individuals that are interested in tarnishing the reputation of another are having a field day, posting personal information of people coupled with propaganda can seriously damage reputations. Although there is nothing one can do about this problem directly, there are ways that you may contact site administrators and have them take down the “ objectionable content”. Going a step further is the ability to control what personal information is freely available to everyone or even better, choosing who gets to see what.

You may think this is nothing new and Google Alerts have been available to users to monitor personal information on the internet and you are right. Google’s Me on the Web is a tool for users to manage their identities online. This tool is available to you in your Google Dashboard. This tool is exactly the same as the Alerts service but now it will be available to users at a more convenient location making it more accessible to users.

How the service works is that whenever Google’s bots find any personal information that may be made public, it will send you an email notification and in the process “Alert” you to take any action you may seem fit. The thing is, you need to create a Google profile for using this tool and choose your settings accordingly.

Well I’ve always loved Google for the innovation that they bring, but I’m also a bit paranoid about what they do. They almost know everything there is to know about any person, and here they want you to create a profile to manage your identity. Does that sound paradoxical? I mean, create a Google account to manage what you don’t want others to see? The Alerts service has always been available, granted that putting this tool into the Dashboard makes it easier for users to leverage its power. What is your take on the new identity management tool?

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India's Largest Startup Event, UnPluggd Is Back (Mindblowing Content + Exiciting Startup Demos » July 9th, Bangalore)

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Groupon Japan Gives Away $50 PC Game For New Members

The market for daily coupon services in Japan has developed into a a two-horse race in the last few months: Groupon Japan is leading the market with an estimated $18.6 million in sales in April this year against Recruit's Ponpare, which racked up $14.5 million in the same month (according to daily coupon search service CP4U).

Both Groupon Japan and Ponpare have been trying to aggressively acquire users since their inception. Groupon has been flooding the entire Japanese web with display ads for months, while Ponpare resorted to methods like offering 500 Yen McDonalds coupons for 100 Yen, all just to add as many members as possible.

And now Groupon Japan is taking this one step further: everybody who registers for the service through this page can download a PC game worth 3,980 Yen (US$50) for free.

Needless to say the game (an action RPG called "Ys: The Ark of Napishtim") has absolutely nothing do to with what Groupon usually offers but is just a user acquisition play.Tip: if you're able to register in Japanese but want to play the game itself in English, visit this page for a language patch.

The Ys Groupon campaign started today and runs until June 30. Another Ys game, Ys Origin (which is also worth US$50), can be downloaded for free only today (if you register).

Groupon has been offering software as free downloads for quite some time now (just like Ponpare), but as far as we can see the Ys games boast the biggest value so far.

 

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