San Francisco local ratings giant Yelp rolled out a new offering last week that allows merchants to provide rewards or discounts to Yelp users who check in at stores or restaurants. This move has been long anticipated as Yelp battles FourSquare.
With retailers moving out of crisis mode, they're back to investing in new bells and whistles for their stores and websites. Such as: Apps that send coupons to your smartphone or digicams that let you post pictures of a dress you're considering to your Facebook page.
To get me and the masses of Americans to check in more often, I think Gowalla, like Foursquare, will have to find a better way to show me the do-re-mi.
Some of the best reads for investors from around the Web, including posts on a misunderstanding about kickbacks at Foursquare, the second stimulus plan and the latest in Google perks: servants for its employees.
Facebook is adding a new feature: deals from businesses if you check in. Sound familiar? Foursquare, Gowalla already offer deals to their users, and Yelp also plans to introduce "check-in offers" this month. But Facebook has a lot more users.
Some of Monday's best online stories for investors: Why Steve Jobs is a success; how Pharmathene could go from $2 to $20; and why Twitter is massively undervalued when compared with Facebook.
Rumors are flying that Yahoo is hot on the heels of deal-of-the-day website Groupon, with valuations pegged at $2 billion and higher. But is this a good way for Yahoo to spend its cash?
FourSquare co-founder Dennis Crowley predicts credit cards may soon link to social networking websites, and consumers may be incentivized to actively promote advertisers' products and services.
Motorola is snapping up location-based software maker Aloqa as part of its strategy to differentiate its smartphones with the help of software. Aloqa's technology pushes information to smartphone users about events or special offers from merchants near their locations.
This week, Greg Doyle and his cohorts at InLab Ventures dropped a bomb on the struggling venture capital sector with the public launch of a radical new model for VC. Dubbed VC 3.0, it could revolutionize the game -- but it gores a host of Sand Hill's sacred cows in the process.
This week, the premium audio equipment company Harman International (HAR) agreed to purchase Aha Mobile. The company essentially turns a smartphone into an in-vehicle infotainment system.
Check-in phenom Foursquare just passed 3 million users, a milestone that cements its growing lead in mobile social networking. But how did it outrace competitor Gowalla, which was born at the same time and with arguably better technology? By having the right real world social networks, of course.
In just one and a half years, Foursquare has taken social networking to a new level by offering geo-location services that allow users to notify their friends about where they are shopping, eating or drinking. And it hasn't gone unnoticed. CEO Dennis Crowley shares his thoughts on the recent launch of geo-location application Facebook Places.
