First there was Groupon at the core of couponery, offering great deals of the day to everything from local restaurants to galleries to spas to auto repair shops. There were great deals galore, and the Chicago-based company quickly became one of the brightest stars in cyberspace. There were competitors too, sometimes known as “groupies.” The ingeniously simple idea sparked attempts by Amazon, Google, Facebook, and others to cash in on its success.
Enter Gaypon, the latest of these ventures. It hopes to appeal to the gay community, by offers daily deals discounts exclusively to businesses that support the gay community. If a company supports Prop 8, for example, chances are that it will not be promoting itself via Gaypon. Part of the earnings then go to support charities that benefit the gay community, such as the Trevor Project, which provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to GLBTQ youth.
Sounds like a good idea, but is it a new idea? Not really. It will be competing with Daily Pride, another coupon café, which caters to the gay community in eleven cities. And there are also coupon sites that target other specific communities. African Americans can check out Black Biz Hookup (sadly, they have no deals today), while Jewish Americans (and Canadians and Israelis) can check out Jdeal. There’s even a deal site that caters exclusively to the gluten-intolerant.
Inevitably, some deal sites will thrive while others will not. The one advantage that they all have is that they direct people to local businesses. In an ailing economy, that can’t be a bad thing.
Review: Su Hong and Da Sichuan Bistro 
