Running Groupon or Living Social Deal Leads to 10% Decrease in Yelp Rating -- Study

After a company runs a daily deal through Groupon or Living Social it can expect a Yelp star decline of 10% -- despite a 44% increase in the number of Yelp reviews if it already had at least one -- according to a study by computer scientists from Boston and Harvard universities. 

Average rating scores by reviewers who mention daily deals are on average 10% lower than their counterparts -- those reviews that specifically mention both "Groupon" and "coupon" were 20% lower on average, according to John Byers and Georgios Zervas of Boston University's Computer Science Department and Michael Mitzenmacher of Harvard University's School of Engineering Applied Science.

This rating can decrease in some cases by a half-star.

Another study indicates that a full star increase in an independent restaurant's Yelp rating equals about a 9% revenue increase...

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Twitter Files Lawsuit against Twittad for "Tweet" Trademark Registration

[ Photo courtesy of Svartling via creative commons license. ]

Twitter recently filed a trademark lawsuit against sponsored-advertising company Twittad for unfair registration of "Let Your Ad Meet Tweets."  

Twitter claims that in doing so, Twittad exploited the widespread association of "tweet" with "Twitter" and hinders Twitter from registering and legitimately using "tweet," according to the legal filing.

Twittad filed for "tweet" as part of its tagline "Let Your Ad Meet Tweets" back in 2008, when it was founded. The bootstrapped company...

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Robodance 5 Makes Your Robot Smarter -- and It Helps the Physically Disabled

[ Robodance creator Robert Oschler running the software using the Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset. ]

WHAT: Software that makes consumer robots faster and smarter. Use with the WowWee Rovio telepresence robot -- a three-wheeled audio- and video-streaming bot -- to keep tabs on your house using Skype from anywhere in the world.

Robodance 5 Pro supports the $300 Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset, which can detect brain waves and facial gestures so those with limited mobility can control the robot hands-free. The software also has voice control and when at home, Rovio will notify users when they have an incoming Skype call.

Robodance 5 software supports five other robots, including Femisapien and Wrex The Dawg. Raised nearly $11K on Kickstarter, 60% above its goal.

LAUNCHERS: Robert Oschler, founder. Programmer at Android Technologies, Inc not to be confused with Android, Inc.).

WHY: Current robotics software has limited to no functionality for disabled people. The Rovio's own software presented hurdles for non-techies and had room for improvement. The audio and visual quality of Robodance's video stream could be improved by closely integrating with Skype.

WHEN/WHERE: Robodance 5 is in development / Boise, ID.

BACKSTORY: Robert set out in 2004 to create Robodance 1.0, which let people...

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Capital Factory Demo Day Founder Interviews (Video)

[ Capital Factory Managing Director Joshua Baer ] 

The LAUNCH team covered Capital Factory Demo Day 2011 in Austin, TX last week [ see our live blog here ]. After the demos, we caught up with the founders from the summer batch -- HelpJuice, GroupCharger, SwimTopia, SpeakerMix and StoryMix -- as well as a GroupCharger longstanding investor and Capital Factory Director Joshua Baer.

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My Plan as the New CEO of Yahoo: Video, Social and Mobile

[ One of Yahoo's winners: original shows like "The Daily Ticker" on Yahoo Finance. ]


By Jason Calacanis

A lot of folks have asked me about Yahoo and what I would do if I were CEO [ see the discussion on This Week in Startups. ]

That is, of course, comical and academic because boards don’t put wildcard, product-driven executives in charge of large assets -- especially when the assets are struggling.

Who do they put in charge of large troubled assets? Sales folks like Steve Ballmer and Tim Armstrong, and operational experts like Carol Bartz. Why? It’s a safe choice. Your downside is protected because they are guaranteed to stabilize the bottom line with two tactics:

a) cutting costs
b) incrementally increasing sales

Say what you want about Carol Bartz, but...

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