Starbucks is launching a new digital network Wednesday that it says will give customers access to free e-books, movies and access to some paid news sites. The move is meant to attract customers and customer loyalty, and also to provide Starbucks with a new revenue stream.
AOL's fast-growing, hyper-local news company Patch rolled out coupons on its sites last month. So far, the coupons appear to be of the traditional variety, but considering Patch's overall strategy and boots-on-the-local-ground base, I'd bet that it has a Groupon-clone under development.
Watch out, Groupon: Local reviews site Yelp has begun rolling out weekly deals in a number of cities. While the group buying site has a big leap on Yelp, there are many reasons why the latecomer could bridge the gap quickly.
Google appears to be negotiating to buy the popular local business-review site for as much as $500 million. That would help make Google a website that offers both global and local information -- and become more of a one-stop destination for consumers.