I’ve got to hand it to Loopt; every few months the company tries something different to rise above the noise in the LBS-SoLoMo market. Sometimes these efforts are very creative. The latest effort, “U-Deals,” is a little bit of “back to the future.”
The central idea is this: you identify a business and potential discount, publicize and get others on board and then Loopt tries to sell it to the business with some guarantee of participation.
This is a variation on the original “group buying” or reverse auction model that existed in the late ’90s. The twist here is that the deal doesn’t exist unless or until the consumer suggests or requests it. MerchantCircle also had similar functionality built into its platform, although it was mainly intended for individuals communicating with local businesses rather than for groups.
As I mentioned, this is a very creative twist on daily deals. However there’s probably too much work involved for consumers for it it succeed on any kind of scale. To that end, Loopt has tried to automate the process as much as possible through its app: check in, request the deal at specified deal tiers or price points (see at left) and then promote on social networks.
It’s much easier for consumers to simply find deals through customary channels like Groupon. (Loopt is a Groupon syndication partner as well.) We may see some adoption of this but I would be very surprised if U-Deals took off.
Right now this is only available in the San Francisco Bay Area on the iPhone and Android platforms. Here’s a video that quickly explains the program and how it works.
Update: In fairness to Loopt and U-Deals I have to admit that I purchased the first deal, a discount voucher on Virgin America Airlines. We’ll see how the program proceeds; I could be very wrong. However this was not a consumer-initiated deal I’m sure. That’s what I’m critical of: not deals but the reliance on consumers to generate and promote them.