Yelp-ing You Find Deals

Despite being relatively young, Foursquare has quickly surpassed competing location-based networks like Gowalla and Yelp.

Neither one seems content to go down without a fight, however. Yelp especially has tried to evolve, including the introduction of badges and a ruling system similiar to Foursquare mayorships. And yesterday, Yelp announced they are testing a deal-a-day coupon feature similiar to Groupon.

I really like this move, seeing as how Yelp is already well-established as a location-based network. That means that branching out into a deal-a-day service seems like a smart fit, because they can offer more localized deals without running into as many of the logistical problems that a startup company would.

Innovation is key in this type of social media market, and Yelp is the first of the three big location-based networks to adopt this sort of hybrid location/coupon method.

More importantly, this not only provides competition for Groupon, but could do wonders to help it compete with Gowalla and Foursquare for the location-based crown.

Redefining the Fine Print

The deal-a-day website Groupon has had a pretty good year. They've rocketed to fame, more than doubled their unique visitors (4.6 million in May, according to Compete.com), and just last week started partnering with a few major newspapers.

CorePower Yoga, one of the Twin Cities' most popular yoga studios, took advantage of Groupon's fame with a coupon for a free month of classes on Friday. However, the catch was that the coupon couldn't be used if you had purchased a package or taken a class within the last 60 days.

Obviously, this was CorePower's attempt to bring in people who were probably new to yoga or weren't familiar with the studio. However, the majority of people who would want to use the coupon were victims of that fine print stipulation.

This resulted in quite a backlash on Friday, with a flurry of angry and frustrated tweets and posts about not being able to use the CorePower deal.

This brings up an intriguing issue with these mass deal-a-day web coupons. With Groupon launching coupons back into the mainstream, at what point do promotions and deals like these factor into a company's social media plan? More importantly, what will be your response if that coupon isn't received all that positively?

4 Over 4th: 4 Big Stories From the 4th of July Weekend

With so many of us spending time on the lake, grilling hot dogs and watching fireworks over this past 4th of July weekend, it's safe to assume that we weren't able to stay up-to-date on all of the social media news that happened.

And since there's too much for me to pick just one story to write about, here's 4 of the biggest social media-related stories (in no particular order) from this past weekend.

Hackers apparently don't take time off for 4th of July.

The majority of us may have spent the weekend relaxing, but the slew of major Internet hacks shows that not everyone was taking time off. Yesterday, numerous iTunes accounts were stolen and charged hundreds of dollars for Vietnamese book apps.

However, Justin Bieber took the biggest hacker hit thanks to 4chan. Not only were many of his YouTube music videos hacked, but a Time.com poll about where the teen idol should go next was taken over, saying he should go to North Korea.

The Internet continues to go Gaga.

Another interesting tidbit from this weekend was Lady Gaga acquiring 10 million Facebook likes/fans, making her the first living musician to do so. Personally, I think this Gaga fever is getting a little out of hand, but obviously millions will think otherwise.

Groupon takes local approach to coupons.

Groupon, the fast-growing consumer deal website, also made headlines over the weekend with their partnership with newspapers in Miami and Sacramento. The partnership will feature very localized deals on the newspapers' websites. This is definitely a win-win situation, extending Groupon's reach while offering new revenue sources for struggling newspapers. We'll have to wait to see how effective this new tactic is, and whether or not it grows to more markets.

"The Internet is over."

This was said by Prince in an interview yesterday, and it's been buzzing around the Internet ever since. His prediction, a result of his much-publicized frustration with online music sharing sites, claims that the Internet is simply fad. He went on to say that the Internet is no different than MTV and will suffer the same decline in popularity. Needless to say, few of us are convinced this is going to happen.

So there you have it, 4 of the biggest social media stories from this past 4th of July weekend. Hopefully this will give you all some reading material while recovering from a weekend of grilling and fireworks.