Street Fight Daily: 10.24.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.
Groupon Now! generated just $1 million of gross billings in September, despite being available in 25 markets — only $40k per market. In other words, the product that Groupon is telling investors to view as the future of the company, still represents less than 1% of Groupon’s total gross billings in North America. (Yipit Blog)
Group buying sites in China are reaching 42 million customers according to figures released by The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). The figure represents an increase of 125% on the previous the year’s business, with the country’s group buying industry now estimated to reach 8.7% of China’s Internet users. (The Next Web)
Atlanta-based ScoutMob has cut out the high commissions and has launched as an all mobile site as it prepares for the next wave of deals beyond the world defined by Groupon and Living Social. A key to the site is that it refers customers to deals via a phone’s geo-location capabilities. (Local Onliner)
Groupon has managed to narrow its losses from $101 million in the second quarter to just $239,00 in the third quarter. On revenues of $430 million, that’s basically breaking even. Considering the fact that everyone thought Groupon was just going to burn cash forever and never turn a profit, this is pretty impressive. (Business Insider)
People from all over the world have tapped the “check-in” button on the foursquare app. The foursquare community team put together a video based on a call for check-in clips just a week ago. (The Next Web)
“As the daily deal space matures to more customers centric, the criticism on customer fatigue will be a thing of the past,” writes Preetam Kaushik. “If the merchants see value in Groupon deal and offer a repeat business, the growth may become more organic than fueled.” (Daily Deal Media)
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