The global leader in “daily deals” is now valued at almost $13 billion after saying it increased the offering by 5 million shares to 35 million in total and pricing them at $20 each, above an initial range of $16 to $18. Is this good business, or simply a return of the crazy valuations that heralded the spectacular crashing to earth of the majority of 1^st generation Internet companies.

What does Groupon actually do for its customers?

There are mixed reports on the validity of the daily deals model. While the company undoubtedly offers small businesses coverage to a huge customer database, that they would never be able to build themselves, many companies have struggled to break even when take-up has been high. They are forced to price the service often at a loss.

However, for those businesses simply “looking to get people in the door”, then this offers an unrivalled opportunity.

The threat of competition:

But can Groupon really sustain such a high valuation? The shares have traded robustly in the first week, but the threat of more competition hangs heavily over its business model. Many of the major online retailers are creating their own flash-sale sites to sell off stock, and many retailers are now offering time or volume-limited sales either on their own sites, or via social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

This trend is likely to continue, making the proposition of third-party daily deal sites less exclusive and making it harder for them to source compelling deals. If, as some investment specialists predict, backers simply “flip” their investment – sell straight away and profit on the initial buzz – it could start a downward spiral and something akin to the burst dotcom bubble all over again.

The next few months will tell if the spectre of overvalued internet companies is coming back to haunt us. In the meantime, $13bn company in 3 years from its inception..not bad for 3 years work!

Mobile has a lot going for it:

But smartphones excel not just in their look, but also in their utility. And the consumerisation of the mobile phone owes a lot to the cloud. For much of the personal computing era, the content that people needed for work or entertainment had to be stored on PCs’ hard disks, or on external drives and USB keys. Now huge amounts of data reside in the cloud, and can be instantly retrieved from almost anywhere in the world.

The rise of the cloud benefits the smartphone user in other ways too. It has manifested itself in a multitude of consumer-focused web services from Facebook, which has over 800m users, to a host of smaller firms such as Foursquare, which was created specifically to let people tell their friends where they are.

Find your SoLoMo

A combination of social networking, location-signalling, and mobile computing (SoLoMo) is changing the way we use web services. It is encouraging to use them more frequently on a smartphone or tablet device, than we would a PC.

The proliferation of broadband connections has also helped catapult this into the mainstream. Fixed-line broadband connections are now commonplace, often with a Wi-Fi link at the end of them to allow people to use their devices wherever they are. You can now stay connected to the internet almost anywhere.

For you as a small business with an online presence, our advice is take a look at m-commerce..and fast.  We have been advising on this blog to take social media seriously for many months now, and fortunately a lot of our customers have responded.

Engaging via social media, alerting potential customers of special offers when they are in your area or searching for relevant information around your products via their smartphones..these are yet more opportunities to make e-commerce and even larger part of your business into the future.

You need two websites nowadays:

One thing that this should flag up for businesses, is that a social media presence, has become, at the very least, as important as your web site. Any product-focused operation needs to be where its customers are. Social media’s power to engage an interested audience, and to enable customers and prospects to advocate your brand for free only strengthens this argument.

But there has been a backlash among the Internet population about the control online behemoths such as Facebook and Google seem to have over us. These brands are much maligned in the media..we are constantly told that these people cannot be trusted.

Facebook and Google: Friends or foes??

People have a choice. There are plenty of search engines aside from Google. There are numerous other ways to organise and enhance social lives, or to promote your brand in a positive way, other than Facebook. These are just two of the best at what they do. We use them for convenience and for the quality of their service if nothing else.

If Google started to give erroneous and irrelevant results on a regular basis, we would soon turn away. And the same with Facebook..if it was really that intrusive and “Big-brother”like, we would soon delete accounts…and the population would fall at a much faster rate than Facebook users are currently jumping ship.

Friends for sure:

Rather than being perceived as dominant and oppressive control freaks in the online space, these two brands should be embraced and appreciated for the great things they are. There are very few people reading this, who will not have benefited from either brands myriad of great services. If that wasn’t the case, we would soon be off to use someone who could give us what we want!

The tablet market hotting up:

The latest product is the Kindle Fire. A direct competitor to the iPad. Albeit with a smaller screen and Wi-Fi connectivity only, I am sure this is nothing more than Amazon’s first shot across the Apple bow. The similarities between Amazon and Apple are obvious. Both have a huge collection of content that encompasses films, books and music. Customers of both companies can store content in the cloud and retrieve it from anywhere.

But price clearly differentiates the two. The Kindle Fire, due out in November, can be bought for just $199. The latest version of the Kindle e-reader, can be acquired for just $79. This gives a clear indication of Amazon’s strategy; recently enforced by the CEO: ” We are building premium products and offering them at non-premium prices.”

Great products, low prices:

Amazon’s unrivaled ability to drive down the price of everything it sells, is what gives them a colossal advantage. This is supported by a suite of innovative services to grateful customers.

Amazon has invested heavily in cloud computing, and their future success is, to an extent, contingent upon the success of the imminent tablet. If the tablet is popular, this will boost sales of Amazon’s cloud-based content, in the same way that the Kindle e-reader boosted sales of e-books.

Apple and Amazon squaring up to each other??

A price war between Apple and Amazon may be sparked. Apple made $7.3bn net profit in the latest quarter. Their profit margin is in excess of 20%, compared to Amazon’s 4%. On these figures, Apple could be the worst company in the world to pick a fight with! Should be an interesting tablet landscape unfolding in 2012!

A whopping £5.2billion was spent online in the UK during April of this year. This equates to £82 per person, and a year-on-year increase of 19%. Figures the High Street may well never reach again. Indeed, the High St is reporting some of its worst results in years.

One of the key factors in driving e-commerce is comparison shopping. Instantaneously, consumers can find the best price for what they are looking for. People are still shopping, but they are increasingly savvy. They are going online to find the best deal.

With the advent of social commerce channels, and mobile applications, growth in e-commerce is forecast to continue. Indeed, those multi-channel retailers – those with both a high-street and an online presence – have seen the fastest growth in the past year.

It is when recognised brands such as Tesco, House of Fraser, and John Lewis, are focusing on their online presence, that you know online retail is truly coming of age. Indeed, John Lewis’s online sales have risen 24% in the past year.

The development of technology has clearly assisted these retailers in their ability to facilitate successful transactions. Now the challenge for e-retailers both big and small, is to integrate the growing number of sales channels to ensure a clear marketing message and consistent customer experience.

Many foresee mobile commerce soon overtaking desktop internet access and are gearing up with shopping applications for mobile phones. This means consumers will expect to receive relevant messages based on where they are.

So if you are a traditional shop, get serious about the web and its possibilities to ensure long-term success.

But what are the best practices employed by brands that are generating tangible value from Facebook and the “Like” button? This is easily the most widely adopted social Plugin, and you do not need to be a globally recognised brand to reap the benefits.

Social Plugins more effective than your marketing team!

The average Facebook user has 130 friends. If you can persuade a user to share a story about your business on Facebook, then it’s not only a great cost-effective marketing tool, but the real magic lies in the fact that is a personal referral from a friend to a friend. This is a significantly stronger sell that if a company is “pushing” a generic marketing message out there. Incidentally, there is nothing more old hat than that, and Facebook users give such marketing strategies very short shrift!

By optimising the Facebook Like button, you can generate significantly increased traffic to your website. Levi’s is a great example of this; over 40% of their increased visits came from Facebook after they added the Like button to their website.

Know your customer; then Optimise:

Not only does the Like button transfer the marketing/purchase funnel into a viral loop, but it also enables tracking to a much greater extent than before. By tracking interactions, you can then determine how effective the Like button actually is with regard to engagement and conversion rates. Facebook Insights also enables you to get a better grasp on the demographic profile of those who are engaging with your content.

As with Google Analytics, knowing your customer is the key to optimisation. With the data gleaned from Facebook Insights, you can optimise elements such as the style of the Like button, and where to place it on the page for maximum interaction. The more you target, the more effective the Like button can be for you and your business.

So Steve Jobs has not only helped reshape Apple, but he has redefined major parts of the technology industry. So will his departure mean the end of Apple’s dominance? Other companies have seen their fortunes fade after iconic leaders have departed. Take Bill Gates leaving Microsoft as an example.

Succession planning:

But this should not be the case for Apple. This is not a sudden move. The company has had a while to plan for this, and indeed the new chief operating officer, has stepped in successfully for Mr Jobs in the past. For the periods where Mr Jobs has been absent in the past, Apple has continued to run smoothly. Loyalty of the workforce and a significant pool of talent across Apple’s business divisions, signifies that Apple’s future should continue to be bright.

And after all, Steve Jobs, is not disappearing completely. He is to become Chairman of Apple’s board, so will no doubt have a say in key decisions for the foreseeable future.

More game changers in the pipeline:

Perhaps, most importantly of all, Apple has a great product pipeline. The company will shortly unveil the latest version of the iPhone and is expected to launch a new iPad early next year. And their dominance is not just in products (hardware). The real secret of Apple’s success lies in the integration of these with software and services such as the iTunes store.

This symbiotic relationship between hardware and software is what has transformed the music industry. The iPhone and its Apps have helped to transform another market and create a huge cash pile.

We wish Mr Jobs continued prosperity, but more importantly, good health.

Some companies; Mercedes-Benz being one, have achieved a phenomenal Facebook presence by adopting this strategy. But for many, they are beginning to realise, that the measurable effects of a multitude of “likes” are actually minimal.

In fact, they are simply a forced public display of an opt-in to a brand’s social news stream. It is not what it was first presumed to be; brand advocacy.

Phase 1: Like. Phase 2: Advocate

Advocacy goes beyond an affinity with a brand and can be extremely effective at influencing other people’s behaviour. 90% of people said they would trust word-of-mouth recommendations from people they know according to the Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey.

So if the wisdom of friends is becoming ever more relevant, how can you use social technologies to stitch together the wisdom of friends and increase the flow of advocacy of your brand?

Between 5-15% only of all pasts that past through people’s newsfeeds on Facebook are ever viewed. So to improve upon this, the “recommend” button was introduced. This is a form of advocacy as people are effectively saying when they use it, that “this is something which I like, and think will also be of specific interest to you”

The Google “+1″ button works along similar lines. Using this has the same effect; it publicly gives something your stamp of approval.  These stronger advocacy tools may well influence current SEO, giving much more weight to search via social interaction. That remains to be seen. But it does indicate that social media is moving into a new phase, where companies will be expected to work much harder to earn engagement and advocacy.

Fans must become genuine advocates. To achieve this, brands must create more meaningful and valuable interactions with people. It is no longer enough to be “liked”.

On a negative note, Twitter served as a mobilising tool to encourage further mindless vandalism. Indeed, it has even faciliated a co-ordinated looting strategy. By posting on Twitter, where these vandals were heading, others rushed to get a slice of the loot. It helped to inflict further criminal damage upon our society, and to foment an already tense stand-off between police and the looters.

It has manifested itself as tool for good and bad citizen journalism. With everyone posting tweets, it has been nigh on impossible for authorities to decipher real intelligence from red herrings. How can an already stretched police force manage this? This is the equivalent of 100,000 prank 999 calls all coming in simultaneously. Perhaps we should take a leaf out of China’s book and not be afraid to turn websites off in they compromise national security. Extreme I know, but we are dealing with peoples’ lives and livelihoods here.

On the flipside, for every false tweet, there have been many that have used it to vent their frustration and anger at these criminals, and to take a stand against it. #riotcleanup has already generated over 100,000 tweets,and is clearly a force for good amidst all this. Social media can now bring networks and communities together for the rebuilding process.

But determining exactly what you can do with Facebook is possibly the hard part. Relentlessly hunting for “likes” is for vanity really and nothing more! It is the equivalent for businesses of individuals competing for the most friends. It has yet to be comprehensively proven to be useful in selling anything. (although we stand to be corrected?!)

What Facebook can be used effectively as is a test bed if you like. You can gauge if something is actually going to work, by actually giving people a taster of a product and then monitoring their reaction. Facebook is the perfect place to set-up the equivalent of the perfect bricks and mortar “pop-up”store. You can quickly see what people think of your new idea and without a great deal of effort or expense.

Facebook is after all where the people are. Furthermore, it is a fast-moving environment where people are looking to access information or items of interest capriciously. They do not expect an immersive or especially refined brand environment.