systemtrigger

The only customer data Groupon shares with the merchant is first and last name.

> Have any businesses offered repeat Groupons that aren't available to people who bought the first one?

Highly unlikely. Imposing a conditional like that would complicate Groupon's process and confuse many users.

You mentioned identification by credit card number... Problems I see in that scenario: PCI compliance, UX, lower revenue per deal. And since many people have more than one credit card there is a loophole.

Call prospective partner merchants and pitch them over the phone. If they seem open to the idea, set up an appointment to meet in person. Present, negotiate terms and get them to sign a contract. Take photos and write a blurb about the business. Rinse, repeat.

> How would you attract buying customers

Before launch, make the homepage a signup form. Chat up the social media channels. Launch when you have a big list (~10k) of email subscribers.

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=145552

I just started working on a groupon clone. Dev site: dealhill.com. If you're working on one too, feel free to email me. It would be cool to share knowledge and discuss strategy.

After a few minutes trying different strategies:

If I win the coin toss I'm winning the game, every time. If I lose the coin toss it always ends in a draw.

Transcript (of 7 wins): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/142733/tictactoe.txt

Assuming I win the coin toss, I always choose a corner for my first move. The CPU should then take the center but it never does. This ensures I always win.

That said, great job so far. It's very close to perfect IMO.

http://drunsen.com/flickr.html

Here you go: http://bigfishsonar.com. It searches: Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and Google News/Images/Blogs.

I built v1 and another guy polished it up.

EDIT: I just realized it's not "instant" in the sense others are using the word. Guess I should've removed the search button and sent the ajax requests after every keystroke. Ah well, it's still pretty good.

Quick mockup: http://audiothink.com

Concept: User provides prose and a narrator reads it. User pays based on the number of words. Narrator posts audio files to user's private podcast. User subscribes to podcast or dials a (Twilio-powered) phone line. Service uses Mechanical Turk workers to do the narrating. But that introduces hard quality control issues. How does one automate the outsourcing of...art? I thought maybe if I set up a good qualification and reward system the service could have quality safeguards - but that's hardly a solid foundation on which to devote months of hacking. So that's where I stopped.

The iPad design is not shown but it too includes a nice case to hold the stylus.

You can use the ajax demo to make your second idea. Like this:

  $(function(){
    $('#load-players a.button').click(function(e){
      $.get(($this).attr('href'), function(data) {
        $('.rank-after').quicksand($(data).find('li'));
      });
    });
  });

  event-name.html
  <ul class="rank-after">
    <li data-id="1"><img src="federer.png" /></li>
    <li data-id="2"><img src="roddick.png" /></li>
  </ul>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Rogoff#Chess_career

With that lesson, I drop this handle.

I remember that thread, James. It looks like you've made decent progress and have heeded the advice from commenters here.

It is always a process to build that visual argument on a homepage to sell visitors on the concept. If I could change one thing, it would probably be to whittle down your pitch into one sentence and blow up that text up so it's extremely prominent. (e.g. "Digidorm: blog with us about your university and win a $1k scholarship.") Way to iterate and ask for feedback.

As for which framework to use I think the answer may be to move away from Photoshop toward something like Fireworks. I'm in the same boat as you, I get designs in PSD and have to make pixel-perfect html - and like you I notice the friction points (e.g. text sizing in pts vs. pixels, drop shadows don't copy-paste easily, every copy-paste manuever is a "manual" operation). Photoshop is probably the wrong tool for web design. It's great for photos and for going into creative heaven but Fireworks is Adobe's product for mocking up web sites, and I think it's more practical than Photoshop for web designers. As far as the html/css it generates, I would have to learn to trust it. Today I hand-write all the markup myself but there are a lot of tools that are tempting me, especially when they promise cross-browser compatibility.

I'm still seeing $189.95. Screencap: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1704650/prof.png

Let's poll. If you're reading this, visit https://www.videoprofessor.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=shopping... then report the price you see listed on that page over here: http://moderator.appspot.com/#15/e=10e098&t=10e099.

Yes but during checkout what they don't tell you is the default is to charge you $290 more and this expensive line item isn't opt-in, it's opt-out.

Consider someone who arrives via deep link. To that person it appears as if all they are risking is $9.95 - even through checkout. They might click User Agreement during checkout but the only charge that reveals is...$9.95. If the visitor clicks into How it Works they will see the wrong price: $189.95. (Check for yourself: https://www.videoprofessor.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=shopping...). Only the skeptical and curious who arrive via deep link can know what happens after the 10 day trial, and even they will be overcharged by $100.

We can debate whether the product line is worth $289.95 but that is irrelevant to this issue of checkout fraud.