Why Is Boise St Field Blue

Amazon gives Boise first dibs on its new local deals

Other local and national startups are giving Boise consumers a slew of options for low-price deals. Among them:

• Groupon: Launched in 2008 in Chicago. Daily deals sent out by email. Revenues for 2010 were $760 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. www.groupon.com/Boise.

• LivingSocial: Launched in 2009, headquartered in Washington, D.C. The company is a Groupon rival, sending daily deals to subscribers. Valued at more than $3 billion, according to the New York Times. www.livingsocial.com/cities/102-boise.

• The Idaho Statesman: Find n Save sends daily emails with a Groupon deal and various local coupons. findnsave.idahostatesman.com.

• Rimbambo: Launched in January in Meridian. Charges businesses a monthly fee of $59 for three coupon slots on the website, with a timeframe they set.

www.Rimbambo.com

• Idadeals: Run by Peak Broadcasting, IdaDeals sends daily emails with local deals and cross-promotes them on six radio stations.

www.IdaDeals.com

When Amazon.com was looking for a city to launch its new local-discounts product, AmazonLocal, it was the Smurf Turf that pushed Boise into first place.

“Boise State University’s unique, blue football field represents just the kind of adventurous spirit we want our customers to experience every day,” the company says on its website. “We will quickly be expanding to other cities, but we liked the idea of starting in a city that embraces fun.”

The website, local.amazon.com, is the latest in a string of online services like Groupon and Living Social built on the premise that businesses can pick up new customers by offering deep discounts on things like candy, wine, salon and spa trips, or family activities.

For example, a diner could sell a $5 coupon a buyer would redeem for a $10 lunch. With deep-discount online coupons, there is often fine print and an expiration date.

AmazonLocal’s very first deal was Thursday’s deal for Boise customers: half-off ice cream at Goody’s, 1502 N. 13th St. Friday’s was half-off go-kart racing at Fast Lane Indoor Kart Racing, 12048 W. Franklin Road.

AmazonLocal isn’t selling its own deals, at least not yet. Instead, it is connecting customers with seller LivingSocial — “our first provider of deals,” Amazon says.

Amazon has been one of LivingSocial’s top supporters, investing $175 million in the company in December. The following month, it sold about 1.2 million discount Amazon gift cards in a single promotion.

Boise St. has a blue field!?!?!?! in Official message board of THE ...

I was in Boise on a Simplot sponsored trip in January of 06.  We toured one of their factories in Boise, and they were indeed producing McDonald's french fries and hashbrown patties, but the regional manager for Simplot who was guiding the tour told us that they only produce about half of McDonald's fries.  McDonald's splits the rest of the business up between a few other vendors (Lamb Weston and McCain I believe) to keep their supply chain running smoother.  Even still, Simplot produces enough fries for McDonald's to keep several factories producing only McDonald's fries year round.  There was a fire in one of Simplot's factories in 04 I believe, and it turned out that McDonald's supply chain theory was correct.  If they had relied solely on Simplot, they would've had a nationwide shortage of fries.  Touring the factory was really very cool.  Pretty neat to see the industrial food chain at work at that level.

Also, Boise is a really cool place to visit.  If we were having a home and home, I would definitely make the trip.  Their downtown is really cool.  Lots of good restaurants in the area and really nice overall.  I think there is a large contingent of tech jobs in the area, and a lot of Californians retire out there.  Also, the weather was pretty decent, even in January.  Boise sits in a basin below the rockies, and the weather was a lot like Oxford.  We traveled about 2 hours north of Boise to McCall, Idaho.  Possibly one of the coolest and prettiest places I've ever been.  Stayed in one of J.R. Simplot's lodges on the lake.  Three and a half feet of snow every where.  They were having their "Winterfest" so it was a great week to be there.  Really cool downtown area with lots to do and great restaurants.  Went on a 25 mile snowmobile trek to a little town you could only reach by snowmobile after October.  A fantastic time and a great place to visit.

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