Phoenix Local News: Amazon to Serve Deals on Kindle, Google Providing Daily Deal Search to China

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Amazon to Serve Deals on Kindle, Google Providing Daily Deal Search to China

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Daily Deal News for September 17th, 2011

AmazonLocal to Begin Serving up Deals on Kindle

Google to Provide Daily Deals Search Engine for China

Groupon Buys Chicago’s Wrigley Building

Saveology Launches in 14 New Markets

When Even a Record Breaking Deal Won’t Keep You Afloat

Groupon Plays the Wait and See Game with Their IPO

DealShelve says Groupon Malaysia is Number One

DDM11 Video: Gary Lipovetsky, President of Dealfind, Discusses Entering the US Market

Local.com Announces Appointment of New VP of Operations

AmazonLocal to Begin Serving up Deals on Kindle

AmazonLocal, the daily deals service started by Amazon a few months ago, will soon be hawking their deals on the discounted kindle and Kindle 3G. AmazonLocal, while offering a similar service as Groupon and LivingSocial, did not jump into the space by serving up their own deals. Instead they offered deals from LivingSocial.

This may all be about to change as AmazonLocal deals will soon be available to Kindle users in New York City and will expand to include all AmazonLocal cities before the end of this year.

According to CNET’s Don Reisinger: The addition of AmazonLocal to the Kindles with Special Offers makes some sense. Those e-readers, which Amazon launched this spring, feature rotating ads on the screensaver and offers at the bottom of the device’s home screen. The ads aren’t displayed while users read.

Google to Provide Daily Deals Search Engine for China

Google will be heading to China to do what it does best but with a focus on China’s daily deal and group buying industry. The new search service, which is currently in testing, will list deals from sites such as Lashou.com, 55tuan.com and Meituan.com.

With approximately 4000 daily deal and group buying sites now in China, there should definitely be a plethora of deals available.

One interesting note. Groupon will not be included in the search. Whether Google chose to shun Groupon or the other way around is not clear but according to Rob D. Young of Search Engine Watch: While Google suffers in the face of Groupon in the U.S., Groupon hasn’t been able to get a foothold in China – despite efforts to do so that began earlier this year. As Google tries to break into the daily deal industry, gaining early-stage brand recognition in China could be a powerful asset.

Groupon Buys Chicago's Wrigley Building after Repeatedly Denying Rumors

There have been a number of rumors flying around over the past month about Groupon buying Chicago’s historic Wrigley Building. The story first came out when Crain’s reported that co-founders, Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky were in negotiations to buy the Jewel of the Mile skyscraper. At that time Groupon denied the rumors, saying the company had no plans to buy the building.

But it looks like Groupon wasn’t exactly being truthful about their plans since the Chicago Tribune tells us that Groupon has indeed negotiated a deal to buy the property.