Groupon and Location
When Groupon bought Whirrl maker Pelago last month most people responded by asking “Whirrl?”
Location is fundamental to the Groupon experience, you can’t use coupons for (most) local businesses without being proximate to them. So it’s obvious that they should tap into the location aware phones that gobs of people carry with them everywhere and piggyback on location-based services that people are already using like Foursquare and Facebook Places.
Although Foursquare hasn’t officially announced a partnership with Groupon, everyone is talking about it and founder Dennis Crowley’s cagey responses seem to indicate something is in the works.
So why the Whirrl acquisition? Is Groupon going to simultaneously enter the check-in / loyalty space and work within existing apps? Sounds like a tall order but ambition is certainly not something the young powerhouse lacks.
Watch Dennis Crowley’s “Fireside Chat” with Mike Arrington at TechCrunch Disrupt below.
