LocalResponse →

“He says people who go to the effort to tell the world where they’re shopping will welcome the direct overture for offers from those retailers.”

WSJ piece; LocalResponse Raises $5 Million For Its Twitter Ads

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Localresponse operates by searching for key business names (like ‘I’m at McDonalds now’ or ‘Chillin at Baohaus now’) or geo-tagged check-ins through social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare etc.). The logic is the user that tweets, posts or checks-in at these businesses are positive about the business and will welcome direct offers from the business (immediately when they check-in, or later when the business has a promotional offer).

What I find unique about this service is that it proposes relevant offers/ads to the user. Currently, especially with the daily deal space, end-users are fatigued by constant stream of offers and ads that, often, are not relevant to the user’s interest. LocalResponse beats this by understanding that the biggest show of interest by the user is when they talk about or, even better, actually tweet/check-in at the business itself. This is the ‘flag’ that brands/businesses could take as a cue that it would be okay for them to send an offer or ad to the user.

Let’s face it, this is a brilliant way of monetizing Twitter. Twitter should have thought of this themselves, and I reckon Twitter should consider acquiring LocalResponse. If not, Foursquare - whom I believe are also struggling to find a viable monetization model - should consider acquiring this start-up too (which would be cooler, considering LocalResponse is NY-based as well).