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LivingTechie is a deal application tailored to the Technology Industry. Daily Deal emails are sent to people who have companies listed on Crunchbase, presumably because this validates the companies.

LivingTechie was launched in late April 2011 by Roi Carthy, an employee of TechCrunch. This is essentially Groupon for Tech companies.

While the overall concept is similar to Groupon and a host of other deal sites, this one is aimed directly at people in the tech industry. To establish the exclusivity of the site, it claims to only offer deals to companies listed on CrunchBase.

LivingTechie lists one or two deals per day. The deal is announced in headlines and spare terms along with a large “Buy Now” button, percentage of savings, and the length of time the deal will continue to be available. Users can share the deal via email, Facebook post, or Facebook Like with one click.

Below the deal announcement, the LivingTechie staff offer information on the deal. The problem is that they spend more time attempting to be witty than actually explaining the actual deal. For example, in a deal for the Sparrow mail for Mac, this is the opening line under About This Deal: “Remember when you were a child, playing in-doors for fear of the sun sizzling your pale-almost-transparent geekster skin?” It actually goes on like that for four full paragraphs before actually giving any real information about the product. This boorish repartee is joined by links to the company website and links to follow on Facebook or Twitter. Redemption instructions are also relegated to the sidebar.

The actual necessary information for the deal is at the very end of the banter in “the fine print”. This is where limitations and restrictions are outlined, where downloads may be located (a notable disappointment is that the website for download is not even a link, but a cut and paste text), directions for activation if needed, and expiration date of the promotional value.

Additionally, under a link, all deals indicate no cash value/no cash back, entire value must be used in one visit, tax and gratuity are not included and deals cannot be combined with other promotions and offers. Beyond that, users are linked to Dealcoop.com for even more terms of sale.

Users may view today’s deal as well as past deals, even if they were sold out. Interestingly, the Past Deals included stickers that look like joystick arcade buttons for the iPhone, a WakeMate iPhone app and wristband, a deal for a clothing website that is NOT high tech, and a deal for a female vibrator. This is not exactly what one might expect on a tech deal site.

The clothing website deal contained four paragraphs of jokingly putting down site users as those unable to get dates and need online clothes shopping advice. This was how they established its tenuous connection to “tech”.

The application is still young and seems to have launched with less-than-impressive deals. Consumers seeking tech deals are generally looking for discounts and deals on applications, software, hardware, accessories, computers, or other big ticket tech items. Stickers and vibrators are generally not what this demographic wants to see in their deal emails and sites.

LivingTechie asks for a user’s work email address to subscribe to daily email deal alerts. There is no other registration information requested.

LivingTechie.com is free to use, other than the cost of the deal.

Based on the lack of really good tech deals, this site is not recommended. If, in the future, they find deals that are truly great on tech products and present information in an amusing yet informative way (with limited geek jokes and more product information), this could be a useful tool for those working in IT, businesses, and anyone interested in technology.

• Free to use
• Very few deals
• Deals questionably categorized as “tech”
• Deals available only to employees of companies listed on Crunchbase

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