<story><title>Loopt Tries a Groupon in Reverse</title><url>http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/06/22/app-watch-loopt-tries-a-groupon-in-reverse/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>nhashem</author><text>While it&apos;s a theoretically cool concept, the actual implementation doesn&apos;t appeal that much to me as a consumer and I&apos;m not sure it&apos;ll really appeal to businesses.  Would I want to get $20 at a nearby pizza place for $10?  Sure.  But how useful is it if I have to wait an indeterminate amount of time (if ever) to get the deal?  I&apos;m likely to only suggest local businesses that I frequent a lot anyway, and how useful is it to them to offer discounts to mostly regularly paying customers?&lt;p&gt;That being said, I do think this is moving the industry in a direction for variable prices for local businesses.  Imagine a real-time feedback loop where it&apos;s 4pm and you could ask your local pizza place for a discount and they could instantly reply whether they granted it or not.  It&apos;s a lull before dinner and they have some pizzas from lunch they&apos;ve just kept warming up, so they grant you the discount.  Or actually a kids&apos; soccer team shows up and takes over the place so they decline the discount.&lt;p&gt;This doesn&apos;t work so well with resellers (which is pretty much any restaurant), but it could definitely work with service businesses that have to pay their staff whether clients show up or not.  We&apos;ll see if companies like Loopt have this vision in mind and whether they can make it possible.</text></comment>
<story><title>Loopt Tries a Groupon in Reverse</title><url>http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/06/22/app-watch-loopt-tries-a-groupon-in-reverse/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>patio11</author><text>That seems strictly inferior to Groupon: it cannibalizes existing customers by design, but to get there, you need to nondeterministicly charge people&apos;s credit cards.  So it is a reward card, with the restaurant paying 50% of reward values to, um, not reward their customers except weeks after the fact some of the time.</text></comment>