groupon

Employees love their perks, be it cheap gym memberships, lower-priced ski lift tickets, or discounted restaurant meals, and a new startup is aiming to do for these kinds of rewards what Groupon and LivingSocial have done for local coupons.

The startup, Los Angeles-based BetterWorks, has a simple idea: reach out to local merchants and strike deals for year-round offers while at the same time signing up companies that will offer those deals to their employees. The result? The companies have new ways to incentivize workers, merchants have a new source of regular customers, and employees get a wide range of … Read more

I've been living in slight confusion lately, which has made it very hard to keep up with the hurtling sands of time.

So when I read moments ago that the U.S. Department of Justice had impounded the Full Tilt Poker Web site and accused the organization of being a "global Ponzi scheme," I thought that my mind had perhaps missed a day--or even a month.

I was sure that I'd been told very recently that it was social security that was a Ponzi scheme. How could social security have anything in common with poker played … Read more

Hot on the heels of Google's acquisition of German bargain site DailyDeal this week, a new report from private company research firm CB Insights reveals that the multitude of daily-deal sites will continue to contract via mergers and acquisitions but the valuations of the sites will decline very quickly.

According to the report, since their peak hit just two quarters ago in Q1 2011, the Price per Subscriber and Price per Voucher Sold multiples paid in private company M&A transactions have declined 36 percent and 40 percent respectively in Q3 2011.

The decline appears to be being … Read more

Too busy to keep up with today's tech news? Here are some of the more interesting stories from CNET and elsewhere for Monday, September 19.

• Google Wallet launches today, but you probably can't use it yet. The digital wallet is available for the Samsung Nexus S on the Sprint Nextel network. The wallet uses near-field communication to allow you to pay with your mobile phone. "In the future, our goal is to make it possible for you to add all of your payment cards to Google Wallet, so you can say goodbye to even the biggest traditional … Read more

Google has acquired a German daily-deals provider as it tries to bolster its service to compete against a growing number of companies.

DailyDeal, which offers daily deals in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, announced on its site that it has been acquired by Google for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition came rather quickly for DailyDeal: the company was founded in December 2009.

Google's acquisition should help improve its own daily-deals service, Offers. That service, which launched earlier this year, is currently in beta. The offering, which sends deals to users each day via e-mail, is available in a small number … Read more

Groupon has set a new date for its delayed IPO, The New York Times reported last night.

The daily-deals provider will now offer up its shares at the end of October or toward the beginning of November, The New York Times said, citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the company's plans. In addition, Groupon will kick off an investor roadshow to promote its company to banks sometime next month, according to the Times.

Groupon filed its IPO papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June. The company said at the time that it wanted to raise $750 million … Read more

Too busy to keep up with the tech news? Here are some of the more interesting stories from CNET for Monday, September 12.

• AT&T-iPad site hacker goes to court. The hacker said in an e-mail: "I did not fold the two previous times when the FBI tried to frame me as a terrorist" for allegedly calling in a bomb threat to a synagogue (a charge he denies). "I will not fold now when they try to libel me as a thief. My indictment conveys a message that I am some sort of identity thief." … Read more

In the digital-coupon market, the number of daily deals and revenue each rose 9 percent overall in August compared with the previous month, according to Yipit, a daily-deals aggregator and market watcher.

Total revenue for the industry rose to an estimated $228 million, compared with about $209 million in July, Yipit reported. Groupon, the industry's much-hyped leader, increased revenue by 13 percent in August for a total of $120.7 million, up from $106.6 million in July. The Chicago-based company now commands 53 percent of the daily-deals market, up 2 percentage points, beating its closest competitor, Living Social (… Read more

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