Saturday, February 25, 2012

The Instant Deal Clubhouse

In keeping with the randomness of my posts, I wanted to share my activities last night at a place that I see as a game changer.  Living Social threw a wine tasting event with free cheese and meats from Cowgirl Creamery, which is where white people spend a lot of money on cheese in DC. However, the thing that made this different is that Living Social threw the event in their own space.

They recently gutted and renovated a building at 918 F St. NW in the District.  The bottom 4 floors and the basement are for programming, while the top two floors are for staff offices.  LS is headquartered in DC, which I didn't know.  So last night, while we were drinking wine, there was a beer tasting going on and a painting and wine class and they also have a pop-up restaurant of Mike Isabella, who is expanding his Graffiato empire in DC.  The point being that there's a lot of options for them with all the space and configurations.  This to me is the next step.

Instead of the deals at the manicure place or the restaurant places which have mixed reviews by their owners on how effective they are, LivingSocial can program it's own events using outside people but not having to worry about poor tippers or overwhelming small businesses.  As LivingSocial expands their Adventures line, I think people will feel a lot closer to them as opposed to just a place that allows them to eat cheaper.  It helps their brand.

Not to mention that Google Offers has a better system for figuring out what deals I want.  They even asked me to tell them what I was interested in, which means I don't get offers for pedicures  anymore, which is great.  I think they will eventually own that deal space.  Groupon is old news and I think they made a big mistake by not taking Google's insane $6 billion dollar offer.  If that doesn't define greedy, I'm not sure what does.  I hope that Google crushes them.

Hot Tip: Ramblings has learned that Google Offers has inked an exclusive deal with Major League Baseball for 500,000 tickets for next season.  They will be the only place you can get tickets to games.  Not LS, Groupon, Goldstar, etc. 

Overall I like the step that LivingSocial took, I look forward to more events there and I would be even willing to part with more money on occasion for more intimate or interesting experiences there.

2 comments:

maikib said...

here here to the crushing of group on. they suck. any time i've purchased from them, the vendor has been absolute crap (and once i showed up for an appointment and they told me they'd lost my booking; and after calling multiple times to reschedule-- i finally gave up). Group On? Could care less-- they still offer deals with this vendor.

freqflyercoll said...

wow I didn't even know Cowgirl Creamery was here in DC...I'll have to go check it out :)