Some great points in the article and I agree that Livingsocial is better all around than Groupon, not only from a merchant perspective but also with innovation and creativity in the group buying space.

At the same time I believe that daily deals are unsustainable for the large crowd that is out there. Groupon and living social will survive but many will die. My company is providing an innovative solution that complements daily deals and is another good source for marketing.

At Zooyan.com we are creating a marketplace for deals where people can go and search for or browse 100s of ongoing offers near them. All of the offers last on average for 6 months and provide similar discounts to daily deals. We allow customers the ability to buy what they want, when they want it and we allow merchants to have a long term marketing source that provides consistent and manageable sales. I'd love to know what others think. Www.zooyan.com