Groupon expands beyond deals with rewards program

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Groupon wants to be known for more than just deals. It is launching a free loyalty program called Groupon Reward for U.S. consumers and merchants, part of a bigger effort to become the “operating system for local commerce,” as Groupon CEO Andrew Mason put it earlier this week.

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Crowdsourced stationery startup Minted expands into art

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Stationery startup Minted, which lets independent artists submit designs for wedding invitations, holiday cards and other correspondence and then sells the most popular creations, is now selling crowdsourced art prints as well. And the site has launched a new Pinterest-like feature, “My Boards,” that lets users “curate and share” their favorite designs

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3 fun time-watching apps: Qlocktwo, Uniqlo Wake Up, Doubletwist Alarm Clock

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Time is the most naked manifestation of our irrelevance and perhaps that is why I am fascinated by all means of time-telling.

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Mixpanel raises $10m in bid to dominate data geekery

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Riding a new wave of growth, analytics startup Mixpanel today announced that it had raised $10 million in new funding. Led by Andreesen Horowitz (a new investor), the round also included PayPal  co-founder Max Levchin, Salesforce.com Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff and Yammer Chairman and CEO David O. Sacks.

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Pottermore CEO: New Amazon deal so big, any lost Harry Potter sales “more than made up for”

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Here’s the “wizardry” that Amazon teased yesterday: Through an “exclusive license” with Pottermore, Amazon will make all seven Harry Potter e-books free through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library starting June 19.

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Macys.com Rolls Out True Fit Sizing For Men’s Jeans

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Maybe I’m thrifty or maybe I’m just too busy to go and try on a pair of jeans in store. Either way, I know I’m not the only one. In the US alone, the apparel and footwear market is a $300 billion business with an estimated 10 percent of transactions occurring online

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Samsung boosts its mobile ecosystem with mSpot purchase

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Samsung announced on Wednesday that it has acquired mSpot , a cloud-based content company formed in 2004. Until now, mSpot offered music storage with streaming playback, including song lyrics, and also movie rentals for various mobile platforms. There’s no indication if mSpot will continue to support iOS and BlackBerry devices

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Google+ gets new iPhone app, Android next

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Google released a new version of its Google+ iPhone app today, and it represents a big step for the social service on iOS. The existing app was more or less a wrapper around the Google+ mobile experience, but the update replaces this with a much more visual approach

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DDOS attack: Ustream down, Bambuser under heavy load

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Ustream has been unavailable this morning, and Bambuser has been under a heavy load of unusual traffic due to what looks like a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack against both live streaming providers. Ustream issued the following statement via Twitter: “News Alert: #Ustream is inaccessible due to a large scale DDOS attack targeting Russian opposition channels on Ustream.” The company wasn’t immediately available for additional details

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Saygent uses mobile to help retailers get instant customer feedback

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For businesses, getting valuable and timely feedback from customers can be like pulling teeth. But mobile technology is offering a way to make that a lot easier and more attractive to consumers

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