Business Week : Why Did Newspapers Take So Long to Copy Groupon?

"To be fair to newspapers, not even Web giants such as Google and Yahoo have managed to come up with something like Groupon, which is a big part of why Google wanted to acquire it. But if anyone was in a position to do so, it should have been the newspaper industry; after all, who else already has relationships with hundreds, or even thousands, of local merchants and businesses? The problem for newspapers was seeing those relationships in a different way: not just as a static provider of banner ads and full-page color spreads for the advertising salespeople to harvest on a semiannual or quarterly basis, but as a resource the papers could connect directly to customers for a fee."

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Cox Media's DealSwarm Group Buy Site to Feature Live Deals Before Thanksgiving

Cox Media's recently launched DealSwarm group buying website, with which they hope to capitalize on the "daily deal frenzy" currently sweping the nation, is making haste to go live with deals before the 2010 Holiday season. According to an email sent out to Austin DealSwarm subscribers, the site will be featuring live deals "Soon (and by soon we mean "before Thanksgiving")."

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Editor & Publisher : DealSwarm Puts Cox into Group-buying Business

Atlanta-based Cox Media Group is introducing a Web-based group-buying discount program called DealSwarm, which will soon offer bargain hunters in Atlanta, Austin, Texas, Dayton, Ohio, and Seattle online discounts of 50% or more on local dining, entertainment and other services from some of the most popular local businesses.

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