This is a really powerful partnership. This falls into the bucket of ways to fix restaurant websites. If GroupOn ever decided to go the route of local business tech powerhouse (way beyond what they do now), I'd buy this combo of startups together in a heartbeat.
Update of my GroupOn shopping spree ie- who I would buy if I were GroupOn aside from other GroupOn like sites. This takes into account a big vision of: "SMB web marketing leader for local businesses." May make no sense, but just thoughts:
Just playing devil's advocate here: seeing interactive helps newspapers make money (via ads and biz directories). But I see Groupon preferring that newspapers get out of those lines of business altogether so they can direct more consumers and marketing dollars towards their sites.
It's still digital dollars being spent. It's also a great way to get in bed with those guys. My strategies in business is always about "Bread and Circus". Give your customers something they need, even if need be for free, to get the real value you will eventually want. It lets you get in bed much more easily. It's like buying a girl a drink at the bar. She will still need to like you, but it's a lot easier to start talking to her + get her in bed by breaking the ice buying a drink.
Andrew here from the Press-Enterprise. A few notes here on Groupon, websites and our success:
-we have a Groupon 'clone' program that is moderately successful.
-we approached Groupon in 2009 and proposed a partnership to tackle the local market. Various issues came up and we could not reach an agreement that would take us beyond standard affiliate. Groupon is okay and is getting a ton of exposure, but I am interested in their ability to support local advertisers. I here good things from buyers, but not always from merchants...
-Newspapers, from my brief experience here, generally face 2 issues with partners like seeing interactive:
1) Historical tendency to pay too much for hosted solutions that actually take customers away.
2) Print mentality that change is very slow, but often dramatic (new front page or sports section) instead of rapidly iterating in increments at a target experience.
Biased as it may sound, Seeing Interactive eliminated both of these concerns as they continue to iterate and improve the product and help the Press Enterprise keep customers.
This is an interesting prospect. Newspapers have been struggling with their websites trying to see profitability. The circulation model is there in small numbers, same conclusion with upselling advertising to the website. If newspapers can gain the "Community Bill Board" status once again then you have something. However, the redesign of websites needs to be an easy process or the newspapers have to offer redesign as a service. The search for the local businesses has to have a return on the top of the search page. If Seeing Interactive can offer these two key components, this will make a huge impact in how newspapers do business in the future. They could be on to something here!
It sounded to me like this was geared towards businesses that don't have any website yet (not redesigns of existing sites) -- hence the remark about clients never using anything beyond email.
Update of my GroupOn shopping spree ie- who I would buy if I were GroupOn aside from other GroupOn like sites. This takes into account a big vision of: "SMB web marketing leader for local businesses." May make no sense, but just thoughts:
Yodle- http://www.yodle.com/
Weebly
Seeing Interactive
Square (may be too pricey)
SailThru