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Amazon will ditch its daily local deals on December 18 (update: Register too)
If you're the sort of person who really likes getting $50 of seafood for $25, your day just got a little more depressing. Amazon just announced that it would stop selling those sorts of daily deals from both its AmazonLocal site and its corresponding app on December 18th. Don't worry if you've loaded already up your calendar with days-long real estate courses and cheap car washes — any vouchers you already have, or buy before the deadline, will remain valid. Update: That's not all for the local services pullback, as Amazon also revealed it's shutting down the Local Register app that competed with the likes of Square and PayPal to process payments for small businesses. As of the 30th it is no longer accepting new customers, and the service will fully shut down on February 1st.
Amazon goes local with new iOS app
Amazon already has an extensive suite of iOS apps, everything from the Kindle Reader to the Price Check app that lets you compare local prices to Amazon online prices. That app doesn't make local businesses too happy, but a new app from Amazon should have the opposite effect. Amazon Local, a free app released over the weekend gets your current location either from GPS or manually, then shows you deals in your area. Depending on where you live, you may see many deals or none at all if you're not near a suitably sized urban area. Here in Southern Arizona, I saw two deals today -- a discount at a local hotel and 75 percent off at a beauty salon. Neither was useful to me, but hopefully that will improve with time. When I switched my location to larger cities like Phoenix or Denver, the deals started rolling in. You can tell the app what kinds of deals you are interested in, including types of restaurants, sports events, concerts or what you shop for. I wish the choices were a bit more granular, I'd like to ask for particular types of movies, for example, but the feature mostly gets the job done. You can ask for alerts to deals, but I'd prefer not to have the interruptions, so I'll just look at the app when the spirits move me. If you find a deal you like, you can get driving directions to the location, or call the merchant directly from the app. You can also share deals via email, Facebook, Twitter and SMS. Amazon Local is a useful app, but could get a little smarter about the kind of things that you like. %Gallery-164851%
PSA: One year of Xbox Live Gold for $35 on AmazonLocal
AmazonLocal is offering a voucher for a one year subscription to Xbox Live Gold for $35. The deal is applicable in every supported location in the United States, one per customer. If you live in one of the 20 states that don't receive AmazonLocal deals (what's up, South Dakota?), the retail service won't mind if you lie to it and select a location that does.So if you're a liar that loves Xbox Live subscription deals, get this one while it's hot as vouchers are in "limited quantities."[Thanks, Jonathan!]
