Ok, I’ll admit it, I’m liking Groupon, SwarmJam, and other email-driven and mobile local coupon deals.. heck, what’s not to like about the service?

Indeed, I’ve been pretty skeptical about the insane valuations being thrown around about Groupon, although Google and their recent announcement to jump into this lucrative space may derail the huge valuation of Groupon… wait and see I guess. So how popular has Groupon, Living Social and other services become??

Check this out, recently there was a promotion from Amazon offering $20 Amazon Gift Card for $10… there were more than 1.3 million of the deals sold!

I’ve recently purchased several deals, mostly half off food and drink although I’ve yet to actually turn in one of my coupons… I’m pretty much paperless so I do hate the idea of having to actually print out the coupon and take it with me – why can’t I simply show the receipt using my smartphone?? So there’s one way to make these services better, but what about more Geo?

I can’t help but think that there’s some opportunity here for skilled, mobile, Geo savvy application developers to jump in here and come up with some very cool ways to make these services even better. With foursquare, GoWalla, and other social checkin services being so popular, perhaps some Groupon-like integration with checkins would be a great idea. This could be huge for foursquare and others and maybe help offer something valuable and useful as a reward for checking in… addressing the topic of user burn-out due to lack of benefit for checking in. And then there’s the idea of geo fencing and notifications being sent to mobile (opt-in) users based on their location. I for one be open to some notifications from select merchants based on my location.

Perhaps I didn’t see today’s Groupon or SwarmJam offer. But, what if I get within blocks of a pub serving up a Groupon today… why not automatically message me when I enter a "hot" zone? 

Since I travel a fair bit I’d also like an app or service that will detect that I’m in a new region, then based on that position, Groupon and other services that I elect to use will update me with deals from that city rather than me having to physically login to my account and update which city deals I receive.

There’s lots of ways that coupon services and mobile advertising can evolve, I just hope some of you mobile, Geo, and LBS app developers jump on this and score a nice win!

Originally published on http://blog.gisuser.com