Tag: Groupon »

We all shop, right? Heck, even those of us who adamantly declare all we need is online shopping tend to end up in a store at some point in our lives. It’s kind of fun to browse around, and sometimes it’s more straightforward to seek something out by looking around. The Apple Watch has a ton of potential for changing how we shop. Some developers and retailers have already leapt upon this idea, such as Woolworths in Australia launching an app soon and Retale announcing a similar app. What else do you want, though? We take a look at some neat potential ideas.

Something like RedLaser

RedLaser is a great app for the avid shopper, allowing you to search for plenty of products, coupons, and deals near you. Expand that to the Apple Watch and things could get even simpler. Glances and Notifications could mean you could easily see what deals are available at a store while you’re nearby. You could quickly use Siri to look up a review, saving you from getting your phone out and generally looking way cooler. It’s going to need some backup from your iPhone, but it’ll save you plenty of time and effort.

Amazon

Nothing’s been confirmed yet, but there’s got to be an Amazon Apple Watch app coming, right? Being able to search quickly would be great, plus there's the potential from its 1-Click ordering system. I remember one stressful Christmas shopping trip last year where I stood in a mall and used my iPhone to buy the stuff I couldn’t find in a store. An Apple Watch method of doing this would be so much smoother and it just makes sense.

Groupon

So many deals! Groupon is bordering on overwhelming these days with the offers it provides - from cheap gadgets to massages. Having these all accessible and scannable from your wrist would be a real time saver. Tied into your iPhone, it could have great location-aware capabilities for when you’re near somewhere with a great deal on.

A grocery list app like Grocery iQ

I wander around grocery stores with my iPhone out, looking through what I need to get. It’s cumbersome, and once I dropped my iPhone on the ground and got a nasty dent in it. That sucks. Having my shopping list on my wrist would be far better in this instance. As anyone who’s used a stock app can tell you, there are far better grocery list specific apps out there. Something like Grocery iQ on your wrist would be convenient, and you could easily tap on an item to say you’ve gotten it and so forth. Being able to keep regular lists would be great for when you’re buying the same thing often, too.

Sorry for the headline pun, but we couldn't help it. Appsbar is a startup that launched in April, giving anyone the ability to publish their own professional level apps for submission to the App Store (as well as to the Android Market).

Last week, Appsbar brough in some new functionality, allowing business who take advantage of the free Appsbar creation tools to include appCoupons - digital coupon functionality, easily added to any app created with the web based tools.

“The proliferation of smartphones, social networks, and the community that is growing out of appsbar has let us create this perfect, all-new way for businesses to directly make and deliver digital coupons without all the restrictions and without any of the cost,” said appsbar co-founder Scott Hirsch. "Our goal is to give businesses of any size a way to maximize the effectiveness of digital coupons. Now businesses can build and share appsCoupon on any social platform, email or mobile database they want."

The application of such an easily produced system should be obvious to business owners who are looking for another way to use coupons in their bid to take over the retail world both locally and nationally. In addition, appCoupons will let businesses control their own coupon promotions, without giving away any of their control or profit, as might be true of a service like Groupon.

These digital coupons can be created using the same wizard and back-end code checker that is included in the free Appsbar set of tools, which can include calendar, menus, soundboard, graphics and GPS capabilities. Once created, the business owner can then notify the users of their app that a coupon is ready for quick and direct marketing. In addition, Appsbar tools allow apps made with the system to be shared on social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

While apps made with Appsbar are necessarily simple, a savvy business owner could well take advantage of such a system to bring the power of smartphones and digital coupons to their own local business. Be sure to check out Appsbar's website for more info.

Two apps made with Appsbar:

OpenFeint has just announced its newest iOS venture, Game Channel. The new service promises to offer lots of great features, including a free game of the day spotlight that will help users discover great free apps they might have otherwise missed. The main draw of Game Channel though is going to be Fire Sale, a new service which is taking the Groupon model of group sales and bringing it to iOS.

According to OpenFeint, Fire Sale will present a premium app that is going on sale every week. Much like Groupon, users who are interested in buying the game at a discounted price can vote, and when enough votes are reached the price will drop. Fire Sale will then send out a push notification to everyone who voted on the app, letting them know the title is available at a discount. The first game going on sale is Jaws from Bytemark Games, and users can start voting on the title on December 17 at 12:01 am PST.

“We have a motivated community that has proven time and again that they’ll come back for great deals. This happens every day with Free Game of the Day,” says Jason Citron, CEO of OpenFeint. “Fire Sale is a truly social, community-based promotion, that is a perfect way for game developers to get their games downloaded.”

So how well will this new feature go over? That largely depends on the quality of apps offered and how deep the discounts go. For instance, Jaws is currently available for $2.99 and will drop to $0.99, is that good enough for consumers? Of course, the price can't go much lower than that so the quality of the game will likely play a major factor in many potential buyers' decisions.

We'll also have to keep an eye out on which publishers opt to support the program, as that will be a big determining factor. If OpenFeint can convince major players like Chillingo/EA, Namco and Gameloft to come aboard then things should go very well, but if the big companies decide to sit this one out then the appeal of Fire Sale may be quite limited. In any case, it will be very interesting to see if this group sale model can catch on for iOS. Could it be possible that we're witnessing a revolution in digital distribution?