Tag: "groupon"
Something new on the way? Groupon files trademark for ‘Groupon Reserve’
It appears Groupon is getting ready to launch a new service called ‘Groupon Reserve’ that will augment the group buying giant’s portfolio of products.
On October 18, Groupon submitted the trademark application (Serial Number: 85450098) with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The filing doesn’t reveal any details about the new product, since the goods and services listed are identical to many of the company’s previous filings. “Promoting the goods and services of others via electronic communications that feature coupons, rebates, price-comparison information, product reviews, links to the retail websites of others, and discount information,” reads the application.
According to WHOIS records, Groupon also recently acquired the domain name grouponreserve.com from its previous owner Benjamin McKean, who first registered the domain on August 4, 2011.
The domain name switched hands this past week and is now registered to Groupon Inc. I’ve reached out to Mr. McKean to learn more about the exchange and will update this post if I hear back.
Here’s a look at the WHOIS record that was last updated October 17.
Registrant:
Groupon, Inc.
Systems Administrator
600 W. Chicago Ave Suite 620
Chicago, IL 60654
US
Email:
Registrar Name….: CORPORATE DOMAINS, INC.
Registrar Whois…: whois.corporatedomains.com
Registrar Homepage: www. cscprotectsbrands.com
Domain Name: grouponreserve.com
Created on…………..: Thu, Aug 04, 2011
Expires on…………..: Mon, Aug 04, 2014
Record last updated on..: Mon, Oct 17, 2011
Administrative,Technical Contact:
Groupon, Inc.
Systems Administrator
600 W. Chicago Ave Suite 620
Chicago, IL 60654
US
Domain registrations hint at Groupon launching a premium paid service
Groupon recently announced Groupon Rewards, a loyalty program offered at no cost to merchants who want to reward repeat customers.
But now it appears the group buying giant might be launching a paid version of its deal-of-the-day services.
On October 17, Groupon registered fourteen domains (including typos) around the phrase “Groupon Premium” like GrouponPremium.net and GrouponPremium.org.
While this may be nothing more than defensive domain registrations by the daily deals site, it could also mean Groupon is planning to launch a premium paid service that provides either advanced service offerings for merchants or customers or possibly both.
With Groupon’s planned initial public offering now expected to be smaller in size, the company could be trying to improve its financials by providing a paid service.
Here’s a look at the full list of domain names registered yesterday through the brand protection company Corporation Service Company.
gouponpremium.com
groponpremium.com
grouonpremium.com
groupnpremium.com
grouponpemium.com
grouponpremium.biz
grouponpremium.net
grouponpremium.org
grouponprmium.com
grouponremium.com
groupopremium.com
gruponpremium.com
rouponpremium.com
wwwgrouponpremium.com
Groupon wasn’t able to land grouponpremium.com. According to WHOIS records the name was registered on January 28, 2011, by Genie Ventures Ltd, a lead generation and internet marketing company.
Groupon picks up over 100 domain names as part of Pelago acquisition
Back in April, Groupon announced it had acquired Pelago (creators of Whrrl).
This week over 100 domains previously owned by Pelago, now show Groupon Inc. as the registrant.
The lot includes names such as drinkvitation.com and giftadrink.com.
Here’s a look at the updated Whois record for tweet2go.com, one of many domains with the word ‘tweet’ in the name that Groupon now owns.
Registrant:
Groupon, Inc.
Systems Administrator
600 W. Chicago Ave Suite 620
Chicago, IL 60654
US
Email:
Registrar Name….: CORPORATE DOMAINS, INC.
Registrar Whois…: whois.corporatedomains.com
Registrar Homepage: www.cscprotectsbrands.com
Domain Name: tweet2go.com
Created on…………..: Wed, Jun 01, 2011
Expires on…………..: Sat, Jun 01, 2013
Record last updated on..: Fri, Sep 16, 2011
Administrative,Technical Contact:
Groupon, Inc.
Systems Administrator
600 W. Chicago Ave Suite 620
Chicago, IL 60654
US
Email:
DNS Servers:
ns02.grouponame.net
ns01.grouponame.net
Because the list of names is so long, you can view them here.
Groupon Goods closer to launch, detailed trademark application now filed
Groupon may soon be launching its rumored Groupon Goods service. In late August the company registered a bunch of domains with ‘groupongoods’ in the names. Robin Wauters of TechCrunch hypothesized that Groupon could start focusing on opportunities other than “restaurants, spas, massages and pilates classes”.
While TechCrunch received “no comment” from Groupon regarding the domain registrations, Groupon edged closer to launching the “Groupon Goods” service by official filing a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on August 29, 2011.
Groupon does register domain names that don’t necessarily materialize into anything, but the company’s trademark filings number only over a dozen, most of which have turned into something.
The latest filing covers three areas, and is somewhat similar to its generic filing for GrouponLive, a service by Groupon that provides deals on local entertainment, further strengthening rumors of a new niche service.
Here’s a closer look at the trademark filing (Serial Number 85409592).
IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Electronic publications featuring coupons, rebates, price-comparison information, product reviews, links to the retail websites of others, and discount information
IC 016. US 002 005 022 023 029 037 038 050. G & S: Publications featuring coupons, rebates, price-comparison information and discount information
IC 035. US 100 101 102. G & S: Promoting the goods and services of others by providing a website featuring coupons, rebates, price-comparison information, product reviews, links to the retail websites of others, and discount information
Groupon India rebranding SoSasta as Crazeal, website revealed early
Groupon registered domain names around the word ‘Crazeal’ back in July such as Crazeal.com and Crazeals.com, and now we know why.
Groupon is re-branding its Indian subsidiary which it acquired early this year, currently called SoSasta as Crazeal.
An early website has gone online at crazeal.com (as seen in the picture above) with no deals listed as of yet. According to a description on the home page, “ Crazeal promises to deliver deals that will leave you shaking your head in disbelief, telling your friends and family and having them shake their heads in disbelief as well.”
In June you may recall that Groupon accidentally leaked the entire user database of Sosasta.com online. The data was even indexed by Google.
At the time of this story, Groupon hasn’t put any word out.
Discussion: Penn Olson
Forget Google Offers, is Groupon going to offer crazy deals on Crazeal.com?
The daily deals website Groupon got its popular name by combining the words ‘group’ and ‘coupon’ together.
Now, as the company faces stiff competition from Google Offers and it prepares to go public, it looks like the company may have plans to provide even better deals called “Crazeals” (Crazy + Deals).
The company registered four domain names this past week hinting at a possible move to launch a spin-off site aimed at offering the best deals online.
The domain names included:
http://whois.domaintools.com/crazeal.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/crazeals.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/crazeal.net
http://whois.domaintools.com/crazeals.net
Living Social registers dozens of typo and anti-company domain names like livingsocialblows.com
As reported by a number of news sites and blogs, the daily deals service Living Social has raised $400 million in a new round of funding, raising the company’s value to a staggering $3 billion.
As the company continues to grow, so to does its ever-growing list of domain names, many of which are focused on typos of its livingsocial.com web address, as well anti-company names.
This week, the list of anti-company domain names registered by Living Social in an effort to protect its online reputation include:
http://whois.domaintools.com/fucklivingsocial.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/livingsocialblows.com
While Living Social has been able to get many anti-company domains, one common variation ending with the word “sucks” (livingsocialsucks.com) is owned by CityDeals.com, another group buying site that registered the domain back in September 2010 according to Whois records.
Living Social registers web addresses regularly, not all of which are typos of anti-company domains. Among the list of domain names, include livingsocialflashdeals.com and livingsocialdailycoupons.com.
This week the company targeted more typos.
Created on…………..: 2011-04-04.
Expires on…………..: 2012-04-03.
Record last updated on..: 2011-04-04.
http://whois.domaintools.com/livingsocicl.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/livingsocinal.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/livingsocinl.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/livingsoclal.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/livingsociail.com
Groupon, a major competitor of Living Social, doesn’t appear to have been as lucky with getting anti-company domain names. Names like f***groupon.com, grouponsucks.com, and grouponblows.com appear to have been registered by individuals instead of the company itself.
Another domain sale for $10,000, another group-buying startup in the works
If you’re like me, chances are you pore through DNJournal’s Weekly Domain Sales Chart that tracks the top 20 domain sales for the previous week, along with additional sales in country codes and other global contenders. While this week saw strong sales with JF.com for $101,000 leading the pack, there were several other interesting domain sales for the week of Dec. 20, 2010 – Sun. Dec. 26, 2010.
A sale that jumped out at me was a catchy group-buying domain, DayBuyDay.com, which sold for $10,000 at AfternicDLS.
Earlier this year as the group-buying craze really started taking off, names like DailyBargains.com were still selling at bargain prices. DailyBargains.com sold for just over $10,000 on Sedo in May. The trend in the last several months, following the lead of GroupOn, has been for companies to use catchy names to brand their group buying businesses.
Last month, uScoop.com sold for $7,000 and the website has since launched.
Day Buy Day
I dug a little deeper to see where this name was headed, and it turns out DayBuyDay is indeed another group-buying startup in the works.
A few weeks ago, the group behind DayBuyDay ran a logo contest on 48hourslogo and a winner was selected (pictured above). The company describes itself as new Shopping Club that offers Group Deals for much lower prices.
Expect to see another group-buying startup, among the hundreds if not thousands launched in 2011.
Group buying is hot, just not the domain name: Groupbuying.com
Back in mid October I wrote about GroupBuying.com up for auction at T.R.A.F.F.I.C Miami with a reserve range of $100,000+ . Although group buying is one of the hottest industries right now, the domain name didn’t sell at auction.
As I also mentioned in the story – if one thing is certain, it’s that group buying start-ups don’t need category-killing names to be successful. Start ups in the group buying space have their share of success stories, despite not having what many might call “great domains”.
While groupbuying.com certainly describes its industry, the phrase “group buying” is not something you would expect consumers to search on when seeking out bargains and deals online.
According to Goolge’s AdWords: Keyword tool, the exact monthly search volume [globally] for the keywords ‘group buying’ was less than 3,000 searches. Meanwhile ‘deal of the day’ had over 40,000 searches in the same timeframe, ‘daily deals’ had 27,100 searches and ‘hot deals’ raked in over 90,000 searches globally.
The group buying industry is abuzz with speculation that Google may buy GroupOn, the Chicago-based daily deal web site that launched in late 2008 – and is valued over $3 billion.
But the news most likely won’t help the chances of groupbuying.com selling for a six-figure asking price, but other relevant domain names in the ‘daily deal’ space could certainly benefit.
While ‘group buying’ is a hot buzzword, it’s not the case with consumers.
