Nokia stuffs Groupon deals into Maps app Nokia's desperate search for something to plug the hole in its sinking ship has hit upon the idea of stuffing Groupon voucher deals into its Maps application. The ailing phone firm has been jamming Groupon Now! deals into maps on its Lumia phones in the US as it struggles to compete with Google's feature-filled Android apps …
A fish pedicure is where you put your feet in a fish tank for half an hour and let the fish nibble away at your feet.
I have no idea why anyone would want to do that, and saying as the fish pedicure place in my local shopping centre closed down after about a month, it would appear nobody else sees the attraction either.
If he ignores the competing device manufacturers his company is absolutely finished, unless he knows something we don't (ie. Microsoft intend to buy Nokia and the long term future of an independent Nokia is not important).
Nokia were meant to be differentiating on WP, not supplying killer features for every other manufacturer. Now, if I want a decent maps solution I can buy HTC or Samsung...how does Nokia really benefit from this? The only winners here are Microsoft and every WP vendor other than Nokia - Elop is a fool.
But the Nokia Maps functionality is becoming part of the WP8 platform and will be available to all WP8 vendors - where is the differentiation for Nokia then? This kind of deal with Microsoft only leaves Nokia the opportunity to differentiate in hardware, eg. PureView if/when Microsoft can support it.
Windows Phone 8 will allow PureView. And Drive is not the only Nokia exclusive. And, lastly, Drive will then become a WP8 differentiator, which will push WP8. This is not a bad thing, as the industry will only benefit from a third player. RIM is obviously not stepping up to the plate.
First,
Groupon's HQ is approximately 1.5 miles from Nokia's L&C offices in Chicago.
The concept isn't a bad concept and it goes back to how to take advantage of the potential of location based services.
You are walking down the street and you pass the drug store where you have a loyalty program and your phone reminds you that you have a prescription to pick up. Or you're walking past a store where you have a loyalty program or a store's credit card and they send you a blurb about a sale that they have in progress.
Its a pretty basic idea, one that I'm sure someone had tried to patent, but really is to obvious to be patented.
(queue the music and the image of a hand holding a big stamp that says USPTO patent granted...)
So it makes sense. Unfortunately most of us would find it annoying and turn off this feature because we don't want our phones to beep at us every time we walk down the street. (Unless of course you can adjust the level of the alerts.)
And of course there are obvious derivatives to this idea. Like an app for those who are in a foreign town on holiday and want to do something that they would never think of doing them selves. So they press a button that says "I'm bored, what can I do that I hadn't tried before...." (So the ads from Groupon aren't always in your face.)
I guess it depends on implementation, but its an idea punted around for a couple of years now.
Anon for the obvious reasons.
"...while a steady trickle of small businesses using the firm have complained that the deals cost them far more than they gained."
This isn't entirely Groupon's fault. It seems quite a few small businesses do not have anyone really acting as an accountant. So, they think "if I do a 40% off (or even 80% off) Groupon, look at all the customers!" They forget that a) If they are taking a loss on each sale, having lots of sales is not a good thing if there's no later benefit. b) if the Groupon'ers are just looking for the next big deal, they've in fact got no new customers (they'll get the 80% off then move on.)
I tried Groupon for a very short time. I noticed that one of their Great Offers was with an outfit offering "food allergy and and intolerance testing." These services are a scam and have been debunked and even banned under several jurisdictions. Unlike real allergy testing, which subjects the person to real allergens, these numpties just measure skin resistance and then draw lots of fancy graphs on a PC. It is total blx but it fools the non-technical. It's called "electrodermal testing," Vega or SCIO. Punters are being defrauded because the kit cannot diagnose anything in reality, despite the great claims.
I reported the scam to Groupon. Their reply:
"We try to offer a variety of deals that would interest our diverse list of subscribers."
Does that count as "aiding and abetting"?
References:
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Tests/allergytests.html
http://www.allergy.org.au/health-professionals/papers/unorthodox-techniques-for-diagnosis-and-treatment
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