Online ? Who's online ? Get outa there....

... and be where the customers are!

Context : was pleasantly surprised to see this along with our morning newspaper a few days ago. And there was another one this morning.

Now everyone's been talking about hyperlocal, but guys like CommonFloor and Open2Save seem to be actually doing it.

I've believed for a while now that

• Hyperlocal is big
• The internet is a tool - it may not be the final consumer connect but can enable a lot of it

So its good to see both these players trying to connect online with existing channels, though not everything has been tried or figured out yet. Purely as an advertising play (some coupons are little more than plain ads) this serves a market which cannot afford and does not need city level visibility, but did not necessarily want to go with what was being offered by the guys who print and ditribute flyers on cheap paper. Given the "aggregation" of deals etc, there's also a better chance of the user being interested in one or more of the deals, and retaining the coupon, unlike single-business flyers.

There's a bunch of other ideas that can be tried in the web-as-a-tool for hyperlocal businesses space. But I'm pleasantly surprised to see efforts to look beyond the web and work with existing behavioural patterns and business flows to provide a better mousetrap within those. The changes can then be effected once some traction happens.

Who says its all about web 2.0 ?

All Kinds of Alerts!

I've been using Zook Alerts myself in the true tradition of eating your own dog food :) Just happened to visit the "My Alerts" page and here's what I got!

Headlines News Alert - 09:00 Everyday
Cricket Alert - When Occurs
Event Alert - Rock Bangalore - 18:00 Everyday
Weather Alert - Bangalore, India - 09:00 Everyday
Stock Alert - Satyamcomp - 11:00 Mon-fri
Stock Alert - Tatamotors - 11:00 Mon-fri
Deal Alert - Stationery Books Koramangala Bangalore - 19:00 Every FRI
Deal Alert - Sarjapur Road Bangalore - 19:00 Every FRI
Movie Alert - PVR Hindi Bangalore - 20:00 Every FRI
Deal Alert - Hsr Layout Bangalore - 19:00 Every FRI
Movie Alert - Pvr English Bangalore - 20:00 Every FRI
Stock Alert - Bsesn - 11:00 Mon-fri
Event Alert - Classical Music Concerts Bangalore - 18:00 Everyday
Event Alert - Drama Bangalore - 18:00 Everyday
Event Alert - Film Festival Bangalore - 18:00 Everyday

Of these, the News alerts, tho pretty generic, are a useful update of the world. The Movie updates are *sometimes* useful - totally depends on whether we're thinking in terms of going to catch a movie that weekend. The deal alerts have managed to get me to search a little more on occasion, and the stock alerts are what I probably read most religiously :)

Just signed up for HSR/Sarjapura Road deals alerts this morning - curious what it'll feel like to follow ALL deals in our area.

Before you go buy that …..

Check things out on Zook - O2S have added tons of great deals for your locality, your brand and service.

Great Beauty Services Offers in Bangalore

Best Digital Camera Prices in Mumbai

Best Samsung Deals Across Delhi!!

Check out Bangalore Laptop offers

Call up O2S at the given number, and they’ll help you out with more offers, and in fact find for you exactly what you’re looking for. Less headaches, better prices!

Deals on Zook

Cross linking from the Zook Blog:

Sweet Deals!

Open2Save, as we've discovered, is one of the biggest aggregators of deals and they're expanding rapidly. I guess a deal is a good find when you're looking for something and want to look around for better offers.