You’ve heard of Groupon, right? It’s a group coupon site that offers city-specific discounts for restaurants, spas, and gyms. My friends at MainStreet.com recently wrote about a new Groupon rival, or imitator, depending on your perspective:
The success of their site has spawned a fair share of imitators and, as far as Groupon is concerned, blatant rip offs.
The most recent example of this is SocialBuy. Like Groupon, SocialBuy partners primarily with hospitality businesses to offer deals on a ticking clock and is founded on the notion of collective buying. This might not seem so egregious if the layout of the site itself did not also appear to be an exact replica of Groupon (judge for yourself.) When we brought this site to the attention of Groupon’s CEO and founder, Andrew Mason, he did not seem pleased.
“We have a patent on all of this so everything they are doing is illegal,” he said.
What’s the upside for you and me? Keep reading the story.
One of my favorite coupon bloggers, Bargain Briana, has put together a map of frugal bloggers across the country. You can use it to find a blogger near you who shares coupon matches, freebies, and saving tips.
Right now there are 35 bloggers listed in 19 states, including AR, AZ, CA, FL, GA, KS, KY, IL, IN, MD, MI, MO, OH, PA, RI, TN, TX, VA, WI. Gasp! BargainBabe.com is not listed! Just a minute folks…I’m adding myself right now.
Beyond finding a blogger that writes about stores in your neighborhood, you can look at an RSS feed of blog posts from everyone in the network, connect with individal bloggers on Twitter and Facebook, and embed the map on your site.
The Frugal Map is a great idea. I wish I had done it myself!
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Simple is good. And that’s part of the reason why I like PriceYeti, a new site that tracks prices for anything sold on the Internet. (The other part is the site’s adorable mascot, above!)
Registering is not required to use PriceYeti, though you have to share your email address so the site can alert you to price drops. Just plug in the url (website address) for the item so PriceYeti can find the item’s price.
You can return to the site to add items to your “watch list.” I entered three cashmere sweaters for a price comparison, one from J.Crew (full-price, $145), one from Nordstrom (on sale for $58), and one from Macy’s (on sale for $90).
PriceYeti aims to be your shopping cart for the entire Internet so it can track prices for plane tickets, event tickets, houses, and services – as long as the item has a barcode and a url (website address). If you want to make your wish list private, set up a password. The site makes money when users click through from the site and purchases an item.
The site’s design as a Twitterish feel to it, though it has no connection to the popular social networking site as far as I know. PriceYeti is a privately funded start up from Seattle. Read a little about the four guys behind PriceYeti.
