Google Captures A Piece Of The Daily Deals Pie With Latest Acquisition

The Daily Deals marketing model may not be so bad after all. Google has officially given it a vote of confidence with the acquisition of daily deals aggregator site, Dealmap.

The acquisition was made public, however, the terms of the deal was not disclosed—no surprise there. Analysts are mum on just what this means for the sector as a whole, but the initial sentiment is that Google’s acquisition of Dealmap is a signal that there could be life left in daily deals. Although Dealmap is an aggregator, its acquisition is strong evidence that the dispensers of daily deals (Groupon et al) will have some relevance, at least for the foreseeable future.

On the other hand, the acquisition of Dealmap could very well be proof of Google’s insatiable appetite for ‘buying stuff’. Google, after all, doesn’t always make the smartest of choices, and even multi-billion dollar companies make mistakes.

The good news though, is that Dealmap wouldn’t be too big of a mistake. The daily deals aggregator was only formed in 2010 and to date, has just 2 million users. With such small numbers and young credentials, I doubt whether Google paid very much for the company. Indeed, Dealmap could very well be what Google needs to boost its own daily deals offering called ‘Google Offers’.

It’s very hard to tell what’s going to happen in the daily deals industry. Even with Google becoming a player, the model could still go under. The key to its survival will ultimately lie in the hands of the businesses that provide the offers. If Google, using Google Offers and Dealmap, can drive profits to these businesses, the industry could very well survive. It remains to be seen, and ultimately, only time will determine that.

Watch the video below to learn more about Google’s own daily deals for businesses.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQFDRaKvcvQ

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Google To Add New Functionality To Circles With Latest Acquisition

Google’s relentless march to the top of the social media mountain just got another boost with the announcement that they’ve acquired the start-up called Fridge.

What is Fridge? Well, before Google came up with the idea of making it easier to segment your friends, Fridge had pioneered that functionality. The start-up created a social network that made it easy for you to organize your friends into groups, plan events and share photos. They got so good at it that they grew to a user base of 40,000.

With the acquisition, Google is clearly showing its desire to make Circles one of the cornerstones of Google+ and reports are that the Fridge team will hit the ground running as they work to make Circles better. At present, the “groups” functionality is lacking in Google+ so the expertise Fridge brings to the table will be might handy. Throw in “event planning” functionality and Google+ will be pretty much Facebook on steroids.

The rumors are flying that Google+ goes live to the public on the 31st July 2011, and whilst that may or may not be the case, it is clear Google wants the platform to be robust enough to live up to the hype. Expect more acquisitions to be announced since Google+ is not quite the juggernaut that Google is looking to build.

Watch the video below to see the really cool benefits of Google+ Circles.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocPeAdpe_A8

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Google+ Joins The Face Recognition Party With Latest Acquisition: Is Privacy Dead?

Google obviously sees great strength and leverage in going for inorganic growth. Gone are the days when Google got in a team and have them work feverishly at creating something—from scratch.

Today it’s all about assembling the latest Google product through a patchwork of acquisitions. Reports are that Google+ has officially thrown its hat in the face recognition ring with the acquisition of Pittsburgh start-up PittPatt. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but what’s obvious is that Google is literally trying to create its own version of Facebook. How can anyone say this isn’t the case? Face recognition technology, groups, pages, event planning—all these elements underpin the way Facebook works. But I digress.

PittPatt began originally as Carnegie Mellon University project and the technology works by allowing for the tracking of faces in videos and photos. These types of technologies are not new, but are the bane of people who think privacy is being sacrificed in the new age of social networking. Indeed, Facebook’s own use of face recognition technology has not gone down too well with many users and privacy advocates.

The question is, why has Google decided to use this technology despite assertions that it wouldn’t? The answer perhaps lies in the fact that Google+ cannot really compete with Facebook unless it first clones it, then bolts on a few features unique to Google+.

Google+ has a few pieces to add yet before it fully clones Facebook, so we can all expect more acquisitions in the near future.

Watch the video below to see more on face recognition technology in the news.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoiTGm7--Q0

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