Monday, January 24, 2011

Local.com Launches Social Buying Unit

Irvine-based Local.com, the operator of local business search sites, said today that it has launched a new, Social Buying Business unit. The new unit will focus on group buying sites, and will be based on the firm's recent acquisition of group buying site iTwango. Local.com said that it has named Malcolm Lewis as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the new unit. Lewis was most recently founder of Fablistic, a social recommendations service. He also has served as a SVP and GM of Local.com, Vayusphere, Vitria Technology, and Oracle Corporation. Local.com bought Los Angeles-based iTwango on January 7th; iTwango's technology powers daily deals and group buying offers similar to Groupon and other competitors.

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