Groupon Cat, pawning his bling.

Cut to today! We're not sure whether or not this is routine business—or just how routine this is, but this just showed up in our inbox:

Yes, that is a Groupon—or technically, really, a coupon (even worse)—for a Groupon. A few things to note here:

1. We unsubscribed from Groupon around the time of the IPO. Or at least we attempted to, however unsuccessfully.

2. We definitely don't receive any Groupon offers on a regular basis. How would we know what to use our Groupon on a Groupon for?

3. This:

To paraphrase Randy Jackson: Kinda pitchy, dawg. $GRPN recently hit an all-time low when hit $8.85 on Monday (it closed at $8.95). Maybe they should offer a Groupon on shares of $GRPN? We'd buy that. Maybe.

But they'd have to resubscribe us to their email list first.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Market leader Groupon recently closed a massive funding round and New York's Gilt Groupe was just reported have hit that magic $1 billion valuation. 

The NYT's offering, TimesLimited, seems closer to Gilt than Groupon. It lets advertising partners offer deals on a limited number of items for a brief window of time. 

This may start to emerge as part of the overall advertising package for publishers. In fact, local deal aggregator Yipit predicts publishers will dominate the daily deal space. 

TimesLimited is focused on lifestyle, travel, food and entertainment. Based on the web site, The Observer anticipates deals on lambshanks and a discount offer to fall off a very tilted boat.

bpopper [at] observer.com | @benpopper

"We created the Big Gay Deal of the Day after seeing and rejecting the 99th Groupon deal for things like Domino's Pizza, lash extensions and straight dating services. Gay men are looking for bargains like everyone else, but we weren't receiving gay-relevant offers even though the gay community purchases $700 billion worth of goods annually in the U.S. alone," said Bradford Shellhammer, co-founder of Fab.com, in a press release.

Mr. Shellhammer promised to offer deals on everything "from gay to 'z.'" Daily deal purveyors like Groupon and Thrillist are known for pitching their offers in snarky, glib copy, and Fab.com shows it's ready to play the game. From today's offer for lube:

And since we've negotiated reduced shipping costs, we are sparing you the need to creatively hide your lube in a rolled up Cosmopolitan magazine while you wait anxiously in a long line for twenty minutes while the lady in front of you scrounges up that last penny from the bottom depths of her purse to pay for a pack of gum. But maybe we're projecting.

Only $16.99.

ajeffries [at] observer.com | @adrjeffries

There are now more daily deal sites than even the thriftiest users want to keep up with. As the number of companies doing the same thing grows, the Groupon formula -- 50 to 70 percent off a product or service only after a minimum number of customers sign up, with extra incentives to recruit your friends -- no longer seems to be enough. The average customer is less impressed by fire-sale prices, the first symptom of daily deal fatigue.

The heightened attention on group buying and proliferation of companies is why daily deal aggregators like New York's Yipit have been able to gain traction. Now other companies leveraging group buying are thinking of ways to differentiate themselves.

Thrillist, also based in New York, recently launched Thrillist Rewards, a variation on the Groupon formula. Thrillist Rewards is a weekly email with local deals targeted to men in New York, with more cities on the way. The deals don't need to be "tipped" -- they're available immediately -- and they're often more than just a box of boozy cookies. Thrillist Rewards also serves up deals that could be whole man dates, like $50 for admission, a cocktail, steak and lapdance at strip club Scores and its in-house "breastaurant," or a gift certificate to the D.I.Y. workshops at 3rd Ward bundled with free admission to a weekly Wednesday Drink-n-Draw (all-you-can-drink beers and nude model).

The Groupon-esque daily deal site Scoop St., also recently launched a new offering: "Experiences," born out of the success of food and pub crawls like the Taste of 7th St. during the company's first few months.

"Every few weeks, we'll choose a new spot in Manhattan and Brooklyn where members from Scoop St. can get together and meet one another over the best of New York. Together with our daily offers, Experiences serve as the New Yorker's local guide to secret events, adventures and new discoveries in their area," cofounder David Ambrose wrote in an email.

The first "Experiences" experience took place last Wednesday at Shake Shack on the Upper East Side, where members were treated to free burgers and shakes.

"Experiences introduces a new way for members and merchants to interact with one another in a very communal manner. In fact, the model of Experiences is based on my co-founder's (Justin Tsang) first foray into group buying in China, specifically 'tuangou,'" Mr. Ambrose said. "Essentially, Chinese consumers would meet and organize together in BBS (online bulletin board services) and forums to set a time/place 'offline' in the real world - assembling together as a flashmob to haggle en-masse. We're excited to bring this to reality here in New York."

If free Shake Shack is any indication, it seems like the daily deal war is working out pretty well for consumers.

ajeffries [at] observer.com | @adrjeffries

Enter NYC startup Lifesta, a resale market for daily deals. "One Lifesta user had purchased a voucher to eat a great meal at a discount while on vacation in New York," says co-foudner Eran Davidov, "But when she got here, she discovered the restaurant had just had a fire and was closed for duration of trip. So she resold the voucher on Lifesta instead."

Some Lifesta users have resold local vouchers after moving out of town. Others have hawked vouchers for couples' activites after suffering a breakup.

If you're a glass-is-half-full kind of customer, think of Lifesta as a second chance to get in on all the deals you've missed.

The idea of a resale market isn't earth-shattering per se, but Lifesta could still enjoy success thanks to the exploding market for daily deals.

Bergine was founded in March by Patricia Calfee. Gilt is looking for local expertise and connections, so Calfee will help run Gilt's West Coast operations, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Gilt isn't revealing the purchase price, but says it will now have relationships with more than 200 high-end vendors.

Competition in the daily deal space is fierce, so it makes sense that Gilt would buy a footprint on the West Coast, as opposed to trying to force its way into the market.