Local Quotables: BJ Emerson, John Paton, Matt McAlister and more…

The best words about and around the hyperlocal industry.

Lots of talk about Groupon this week — its friends-and-family start; who its competitors are; what merchants think. Yipit’s Jim Moran makes a quip about the Groupon-Living Social rivarly. In non-Groupon news, John Paton extends an apology in response to a controversial Journal Register article, and more:

Early employee, Groupon, October 31, 2011
Business Insider: In Chicago, [Groupon] had a big network of friends and family to sign up and spread the word. We had a lot of people who knew business owners. It’s easier for business owners to trust a local company.

BJ Emerson, Tasti D-lite, October 27, 2011
Street Fight: But they’re targeted such that these are your customers and they are sharing their loyalty activity with their closest friends. It’s just a different way of doing targeting advertising, but it’s coming from the consumer to their friends instead of coming from the brand.

Matt MacDonald, JWT, November 2, 2011
AdWeek: Mobile becomes the last mile connecting those designers with shoppers […] Shopping becomes more intimate and personal.

Matt McAlister, Guardian Media Group, October 28, 2011
GigaOM: My hope is that the advertising model we’re working on will support the investment people make in n0tice […] If that’s the case then it will at least be sustainable, if not actually a generative platform — something that gets stronger the more people use it.

Jim Moran, Yipit, October 30, 2011
Twitter: @jdmoran  Groupon Now’s competitor isn’t LivingSocial Instant, it’s cheap lunch.

John Paton, Journal Register, October 31, 2011
Twitter: @JxPaton: Moments like this shatter our communities’ trust in us. We will work our guts out to re-earn it. http://bit.ly/tP5hI

Mike Shipley, Guerillaville, November 2, 2011
Daily Deal Media: While researching the market, we discovered that most merchants were not very happy about their experiences with Groupon […] We found that in most all cases, quality is more important than quantity when it comes to customer acquisition. Mass discount sites like Groupon focus entirely on quantity.