Is Amazon Local The Real Daily Deal?

My sister-in-law in NYC just got her first Amazon Local Deal and sent me the following note:

“This is the first time I have ever gotten something like this from Amazon.  I thought you might find the marketing interesting.

The fit with my interests is quite good for an algorithm I’ve never met, but I won’t know until I have gotten a few more to know if it was merely lucky. The fit is more interesting than Amazon or Kindle recommendations that are merely other books by the same author or arcane subject I’ve purchased before. The fit is WAY better than iTunes recommendations.

What they have right is: interest in cooking, preference for “latin” cuisine, upper east side location (though many from our ‘hood would not venture to Spanish Harlem).

I’m not sure how much of the following did or didn’t feed the algorithm… I have purchased cooking-related books for myself and as gifts on Amazon (including Kindle), and cooking equipment and tools (Amazon only, duh). I make restaurant reservations on open table and have a subscription to zagat.com — but with a different email address — and have made reservations at many latin places. I have never bought any type of service or paid for any type of class via Amazon or PayPal.

I have never heard of the restaurant or chef, but this is interesting enough to me to check it out and maybe even do it.

This might make your brother paranoid. I’m not… yet.”

Amazon has tried to attack local before.  I’ve got to say I buy their entry into daily deals much more than any of the other big guns that have jumped in.  The marriage of purchase behavior data and these offers seems tailor made.  Never too soon for the competition to be paranoid.

Update: Apparently Peter Kafka is not into the Brazilian honey wax thing