The Amazing Amazon Deal:

Groupon has been on the tip of everyone’s tongues lately, but this week, deal rival LivingSocial made the news. LivingSocial’s deal on Wednesday was 50% off an Amazon gift card – allowing people to get a $20 gift card for only $10. Over one million vouchers were sold.  As Mashable pointed out,

“Amazon, clearly interested in helping the startup it just invested $175 million in, will likely take a big hit as a result of the deal’s popularity. The online marketplace will lose millions of dollars — at least $10 per voucher — when LivingSocial members make good on the offer. The company, however, probably sees the loss as a net gain and a worthwhile marketing cost.”

Google Offers:

More daily coupon news: Google will be launching their own deal service, Google Offers. The deal service will work much like Groupon and LivingSocial. Users will receive a deal of the day email and have an allotted time to purchase the deal. Google Offers appears to still be in the testing phases – but look out Groupon – there’s about to be a new coupon deal in town. As many are saying about Google’s failed attempt at buying Groupon (for $6 billion) and their subsequent plan to launch Google Offers, “If you can’t buy ‘em, beat ‘em”.

Social Network Takes Gold:

I love that a movie about social media won a traditional media award. Actually, it won several of them. The Social Network took home four Golden Globes this week for “Best Motion Picture, Drama”, “Best Director, Motion Picture”, “Best Screen Play, Motion Picture”, and “Best Score.”

Google’s CEO Switch:

Google has made some changes to their upper management this week, replacing CEO Eric Schmidt with co-founder Larry Page. Schmidt will still be working at Google as executive chairman. The change came as a surprise to many, and left people wondering, “Why Is Eric Schmidt Stepping Down at Google?” As Mashable reported, Schmidt’s current ownership stake at Google is worth $5.77 billion and he intends to sell half a million shares, the dollar equivalent of $335 million dollars.

Facebook & Feature Phones:

On Wednesday, Facebook launched a mobile app for non smart phone users. The app is compatible with over 2,500 mobile phones, and can be accessed via a data usage plan. For some global users, the first 90 days of accessing the data plan for Facebook will be free. The facts, from All Things Digital:

“Facebook today released a feature-phone app that is designed to be kind of a gateway drug for both Facebook participation and mobile data usage. The company has arranged deals with 13 carriers to give users of the app free Facebook-related data access for 90 days. If you look at the countries where the launch partner carriers are from, you can see where Facebook thinks it can grow: Romania, India, Mexico and elsewhere.”

-Anna (@alucas9)