How could Electronic Arts make Madden 13 different from all the rest?

First, it’s got pretty good marketing.

In a series of YouTube videos, Paul Rudd, perhaps better known as the brother-in-law from “Knocked Up,” and Ray Lewis, the 240-pound linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, pretend to be best friends and poke fun at each other while playing Madden on the largest TV I’ve ever seen.

In one clip, Rudd recounts how he taught Lewis his end-zone dance, a.k.a “The Squirrel,” and, in another, Rudd dances to Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow” in Lewis’s face, honoring the Ravens’ big rival, the Steelers. Burn.

But second, this year’s model is different because it uses all-new technology that makes tackles look even more realistic.

EA released the sequel at midnight last night, with thousands of fans reportedly waiting in line to get their hands on a copy. No word yet on how many copies were preordered, but the latest edition is bringing it to a whole new level — which isn’t that easy to do. Madden has always gotten high marks for its ability to replicate the NFL and is even known for influencing game play on the field.

In a video with one of EA’s game producers, the company breaks down how it used a new animation engine, called the Infinity Engine, to reflect real-life physics. Based on footage, tackles look like they hurt more when players weigh more; legs and arms also get tangled when contact is made, rather than just passing through the animations.

Most reviews so far have been positive about the change:

IGN’s Greg Miller writes: “In past Maddens, there were only so many tackle animations and ways a player could go down. After a while, it was easy to feel like you had seen it all. The Infinity Engine makes every hit a little bit different. Angles, weight and more matter. Watching a halfback break free of a shoddy tackle or a wideout come down just in bounds before stumbling over really amplifies how the game looks and feels. Sure, there are still wonky tackles and handoff animations, but the good outweighs the bad by a long shot.”

From an Amazon.com reviewer, who gives it five stars: “The new player animations are amazing; players for the first time literally get crushed. Backs bend backwards, heads tilt, fumbles look like fumbles instead of floating balls that magically appear outside of player’s hands. The attention to detail is very impressive and marks the first time this generation has gotten a football game worthy of this generation’s consoles.”

But you can’t please everyone. In a one-star Amazon review, the graphics are commended, but the reviewer argues that the game is a step backward for other reasons, including interface and control changes.

Either way, the game will set you back $60, so you’ll have to decide if the graphics update is worth it.

Here’s one of the funnier clips between Lewis and Rudd:

The new feature, called Decide Score, analyzes ratings and reviews from across the Web, to provide a score on a scale from 1 to 100 for a variety of products, from consumer electronics to vacuums to outdoor grills.

Think of it as Consumer Reports, except that that the results are driven by data and not people.

“We are stripping out the bias to return a subjective data-driven score,” said Mike Fridgen, CEO of Decide.com. “More and more people are going directly to Amazon to begin their search, but the problem is, they don’t give you a clear idea what the best products are.”

To get the scores, the company sifts through more than 200 terabytes of data, including two million user reviews from online retailers, such as Amazon and Best Buy, as well as 7,000 professional opinions from online reviewers. The service launches in beta today for more than 22,000 consumer electronics and appliances across 16 categories.

The technology that goes into the product was built by the Seattle-based company, which is the brainchild of the folks behind Farecast.com, which helped predict whether it was the right time to buy an airline ticket, or if a price drop was coming. Farecast was purchased by Microsoft three years ago for $115 million, and is now Bing Travel.

In a demonstration, Fridgen showed me how a TV set on Amazon can have great reviews, but only gets an average review on Decide. From there, Decide recommends other TVs that have better scores and are cheaper. The problem with Amazon is that “it’s one source, and it’s only user reviews, which doesn’t tell the whole story,” he said. “We’re looking at experts and user reviews. There’s all types of bias in sources, and Amazon regularly has higher scores.”

However, getting consumers to change their behavior from starting their shopping experience on Amazon to starting their search on Decide will be a difficult one. ”No doubt about it, that will be a challenge for us,” he said.

When consumers do go to Decide first, Fridgen said that people follow its recommendations and are three times more likely to click through and purchase. Third parties that are using Decide’s content, like Bizrate.com, are seeing positive metrics, as well.

Right now, the company makes money from affiliate fees when people click through and make a purchase, but Fridgen says they’ve been more focused on making a good product. Over the past year, Decide has made more than seven million recommendations, and has saved consumers $75 million. Its mobile app has been downloaded more than 100,000 times.

The Nexus 7 tablet costs $199 handheld computer and features a 7-inch screen. The research firm UBM TechInsights has come up with a $184 preliminary estimate for the costs of components in the Google tablet. That compares with its $153 estimate in November for the components inside Amazon.com’s identically priced Kindle Fire.

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Starting today, Decide.com will choose 10 deals that it is so sure about that if its prediction proves wrong and the price drops within two weeks of purchase, Decide will automatically alert the buyer and pay them the amount of the price drop (up to $200).

The new feature is being launched today by the Seattle company, which is the brainchild of the folks behind Farecast.com. Like Decide.com, Farecast predicted whether it was the right time to buy an airline ticket. Farecast is now part of Microsoft’s Bing. Unfortunately, Farecast never had a guarantee.

In a statement, Mike Fridgen, president and CEO of Decide, said: “We want to show our users this isn’t just lip service — we’re actually willing to put our money behind our data-driven recommendations.”

The guarantee will be applied to 10 designated deals on the site every day, from consumer electronics to refrigerators and videogames.

Today’s deals include an HP 14-inch laptop for $500, representing a 23 percent savings; a 55-inch HDTV from LG that costs $1,199, representing a savings of 37 percent; and the Haier 1.7 cubic-foot refrigerator for $80, representing a 20 percent savings.

If any of those products become cheaper over the next two weeks, a buyer needs only to submit a photo of themselves with the product, and then Decide will send the money via PayPal or check.

While it sounds generous, the program probably pencils out financially, too. Of course, Decide hopes that its predictions are correct, but if they aren’t, the company has some buffer, because it earns a commission on the sales it generates.

To be clear, the company is not partnering with the retailer on these deals, but it does earn a referal fee or commission from the retailer if it generates a sale. Some of those rates are hefty; Amazon, for example, pays 4 percent on electronics product referrals.

Since launching last June, Decide says it has served up more than seven million recommendations, which have resulted in an average savings of $87 per product.

I think Amazon made me the person I am today. Aside from making me very wary of corporate situations, I try to apply the marketing savvy I learned from Jeff Bezos. [laughs] I really pattern the marketing of this show and other shows after the way I saw Amazon talk about itself.

– Mike Daisey, from a 2005 interview about a show based on his three years as an Amazon.com worker

This essentially confirms what everyone has suspected for a while — that Amazon expects to lose a little money up front on the $199 Fire, in hope of selling in volume. It also hopes to make more money on sales of the digital media and physical goods consumers may order from Amazon on the device.

Andrew Rassweiler, the IHS iSuppli analyst who supervised the teardown, said the analysis is still under way, and that the firm may reduce its final estimate slightly. Update: It’s done: The final figure is $201.70.

That Amazon’s model with the Kindle Fire is essentially the opposite of rival Apple’s has been understood for some time. Apple’s iTunes store runs at or slightly above the break-even point, and encourages the sale of higher-margin hardware like the iPad, iPhone and iPod. The teardown study gives both a rough idea of how much Amazon can realistically expect to lose on the Fire, and also the extent to which it took steps to minimize those losses.

There are several examples of where Amazon clearly intended to minimize its hardware costs, Rassweiler says. For one thing, most tablets contain 8 gigabytes gigabits of DRAM memory. The Fire contains only four. It also contains only 8GB of flash memory used for storing content, where the iPad starts at 16GB and goes up to 64GB. Amazon also skipped other features, like a camera and Bluetooth connectivity, and more expensive wireless chips.

“All the choices have been made here to minimize the hardware cost,” Rassweiler says. “We expected to see a certain wireless module that’s commonly been seen in other tablets, and we were surprised that it wasn’t there. There was a cheaper one with fewer features that saved them a few bucks.” The chips were combined into a module manufactured by a previously unknown company called Jorjin, he says.

The box contents are also minimal. The box the Kindle Fire ships in is the same box it comes in when sold by third-party retailers like Best Buy. And the only accessories inside are a wall charger and a cord. Rassweiler says iSuppli initially expected the box contents to cost more than $5; instead, the cost is closer to $2 or $3. “Amazon’s approach was to take out everything they didn’t need,” he says.

But, as is always the rule with consumer electronics, prices come down. That $25 worth of TI chips will cost about $12 in the near future, meaning that Amazon will in time be able to sell the same device, but at a much lower cost to build. Of course, if it’s successful, consumers will want one that’s a little more fabulous, perhaps with a bigger screen, perhaps.

Inside the Fire, chipmaker Texas Instruments appeared to be the big winner, supplying numerous chips that combined for about $25, about 12 percent of the total materials cost. One TI chip, the OMAP4430, is the main applications processor in the Fire. It has previously been seen in the Droid Bionic, the LG Optimus and Research In Motion’s PlayBook. TI also supplied chips that help manage audio, power and Wi-Fi.

It’s a victory for TI, which appears to have beat out Qualcomm, who supplied Hewlett-Packard with the applications chip in its now-abandoned TouchPad tablet, as well as Nvidia and Broadcom, who have been competing for business with other tablet outfits.

South Korea’s LG Electronics supplied the display. LG has a relationship with E Ink Holdings, the company that has supplied the displays on Kindles, and also Barnes & Noble’s Nook, since the beginning. LG is also thought to supply displays for the iPad to Apple.

Along with the display are touchscreen components. Rassweiler says the touchscreen controller chip is from a previously unknown supplier known as Ilitek. The appearance of lesser-known suppliers for these components is increasingly common, Rassweiler says. A surge in demand for touch devices has brought forth a bumper crop of new companies supplying the components that make them work.

Amazon declined to comment directly on iSuppli’s findings, but CFO Thomas Szkutak said in an Oct. 25 conference call with analysts that the company is counting on the device to serve as a platform for the sale of content; Szkutak emphasized the “lifetime value” of the device.

It may just work. Amazon is said to be seeing higher-than-expected demand for the Fire, and is reported to have ordered another million units from its manufacturing partner, Taiwan’s Quanta Computer. Still, it will take many more than that to make a dent in iPad sales.

Amazon shares fell by more than 4 percent today. The shares are down from a recent peak, after the company disclosed an earnings miss on Oct. 25.

Click to see a bigger version of the exploded view, courtesy of iSuppli, below:

Zappos expects to launch its first attempt at recreating the catalog experience on the iPad in early December, just in time for the holidays.

The app was developed by the Zappos office located in San Francisco, where a dozen or so employees are working on building new shopping experiences.

Zappos, which is owned by Amazon.com, is headquartered in Las Vegas.

The new app joins the regular Zappos iPad app, which features most, if not all, of the products found on the company’s Web site.

Instead of being generally available in iTunes, the Zappos app will be found on Apple’s Newsstand, which organizes magazine and newspaper subscriptions for those who use iOS 5. It will be free; a new edition will appear monthly.

Articles will highlight things like fun and funky boots for winter or trends in color. All of the items will be for sale, making it more catalog than magazine.

Will Young, a director in Zappos’ San Francisco office, said the catalog will highlight about 100 items a month, featuring shoes, clothes and handbags. “Most people still think of Zappos as shoes,” Young said. “The main goal isn’t sales. It’s about educating.”

The app was unveiled to all Zappos employees at an all-hands meeting yesterday.

At eBay’s developer conference, kicking off Wednesday in San Francisco, more than 4,000 developers and merchants will receive a preview of X.commerce, the company’s new technology platform aimed at developers.

The nonconsumer-focused platform will enable developers to use the tools to build applications for retailers who are looking to have a larger presence on social networks, online and on mobile phones.

Also on stage will be some of eBay’s new partners, including Omniture, Adobe’s marketing and advertising unit, and Katie Mitic, the director of platform and mobile marketing at Facebook.

Mitic, who recently joined eBay’s board, is expected to announce a partnership between the social network and eBay.

The X.commerce division will draw from many of eBay’s existing technologies, including PayPal, but will also tie together several other acquisitions, including Milo, which has created an online database of offline inventory in physical stores; Red Laser, which is a barcode scanning technology; and Magento, which assists in the creation of online storefronts.

In essence, eBay is looking to partner with physical retailers to generate more sales online or by driving more foot traffic to their stores.

That’s in steep contrast to Amazon, which has increasingly focused on driving more and more spending online. It also has focused on the digital distribution of content, such as books, music and video, and is placing a huge bet on hardware, like the upcoming Kindle Fire, hoping to rival Apple’s iPad.

The opportunity still exists for many to grab even just a small percentage of local commerce — regardless of whether it’s through third-party developers or driving more spending online. That’s because e-commerce today makes up only a small fraction of spending, with the bulk of purchases continuing to occur at physical retail locations.

The X.commerce group in eBay joins three other major groups, including the eBay marketplace, PayPal and GSI, which it acquired earlier this year.

X.commerce is eBay’s biggest move to date in becoming a back-end technology provider rather than a consumer-facing brand. The service it builds will be aimed at developers, who will in turn own the relationship with the merchants.

Take eBay’s Red Laser technology as an example. If a merchant creates an application using the technology, a consumer will be able to scan a barcode in the store, and then find out if the item is in stock. The consumer will then have the option of buying it using PayPal directly on the phone without ever leaving the application.

The most consumer-facing element being unveiled tomorrow is what eBay is calling PayPal Access, which will enable online shoppers to log in to a Web site to buy something using their PayPal account, rather than having to create a brand-new account. By using PayPal, the consumer’s shipping address and billing information will automatically populate the store, saving a few tedious steps. PayPal Access will become available to consumers as online merchants adopt it.

The bill requires that online retailers charge sales taxes on purchases even where their “presence” is not physical but through affiliates. Amazon had warned participants yesterday that it would have to turn off the program later this year if the bill was signed, and Gov. Jerry Brown made it official later in the day.

There’s some question as to whether the law will be challenged in court on the grounds that it violates federal law, because it is broader than similar laws that have led to Amazon cutting affiliate programs in Connecticut, Arkansas and other states. In states where it has a physical presence, such as its Washington home base, Amazon does charge sales taxes.

In a statement, Paul Misener, Amazon VP of Global Public Policy, said, “This legislation is counterproductive and will not cause our retail business to collect sales tax for the state.”

Hopefully, consumers will find it a sweeter deal than last time.

Three months ago, FTD.com offered a Groupon deal of $20 for $40 worth of flowers and gifts on for Valentine’s Day. But the offer was yanked early after users called the deal a scam. The coupon, which was bought by thousands of people, directed buyers to a special website to take advantage of the offer. The problem, users said, was that prices were higher on that site than on the regular website.

This time, the voucher will be applied at the check-out to any regular or sale item found on FTD.com. People can pay $15 for $35 worth of flowers and gifts to be delivered on Mother’s Day. Or, they can spend $12 for $30 worth of flowers for any day after Mother’s Day.

The FTD offer on LivingSocial demonstrates how daily deals are not just for local commerce, but how national brands are increasingly willing to test (and re-test) the effectiveness of driving awareness to their businesses through discounts and mass mailings. (In a separate post today, I write about a day in the life of two local LivingSocial employees who make sales calls in Seattle.)

LivingSocial has run national deals before. In conjunction with Amazon.com, which has invested in the Washingon, D.C., company, it offered $20 gift cards to the e-commerce web site for ten bucks. LivingSocial had a hard time fulfilling the 1.3 million vouchers purchased. It’s also worked with Fandango to sell movie tickets.

This deal also highlights the rivalry and competition building between Groupon, which is the market leader, and LivingSocial, which is smaller but gaining.

Mitch Spolan, who is heading up the effort at LivingSocial as the SVP National Sales, has only four weeks under his belt, having come most recently from Yahoo. Fueling the storyline that LivingSocial and Groupon are in a tight race is that another Yahoo exec, Lee Brown, who Spolan worked with closely, left Yahoo late last year to head sales at Groupon.

Spolan was particularly cheerful last week delivering the news that LivingSocial had a deal coming up with FTD.com, even after its experience with Groupon. To rub it in even more, Spolan brings up another sore subject (although he swore it was an accident).

“Mother’s Day is the Super Bowl of flowers,” he said. “More flowers are sold for Mother’s Day than any time of year.”

Yes, the Super Bowl. The same event in which Groupon rolled out its first advertising campaign that managed to offend its users. It had to yank it (just like the FTD offer).

This deal with FTD will be different, Spolan swears. “We are providing a great deal for our members, and are fully disclosing everything. The offer is available to all the products on FTD.com, and in addition, we put the fine print in plain English. It’s crystal clear before they hit the buy button,” he said.

It’s unclear how the revenues on this deal will be split between the partners.

Typically, half of what the consumers pay for the voucher goes to the retailer or merchant, and half goes to LivingSocial or Groupon. It’s the split that could suffer under steep competition, especially since it’s not always going to be a two-horse race. On a national basis, Facebook and Google have thrown their hats into the ring, along with dozens–if not hundreds–of competitors on a local level.

Spolan’s confident of the company’s leading position.

“If we went back eight months in time, there were two companies that had 90 percent market share and today there’s two companies that have 90 percent market share. On a local level, it’s true, but from a national level, that’s less so. They [the brands] are looking at that market share position.”

In an interview, Rob Apatoff, FTD’s president, told me he didn’t think that the Groupon offer was unfair. Traditionally, consumers haven’t been able to combine multiple offers, so why should it be different in this case? “There was confusion with a group of consumers. We talked to Groupon at the time, and we decided to honor both discounts,” he said. “The consumer got a better deal than the one they signed up for. We addressed it immediately. We let the consumer win.”

The consumer will also win this time because the voucher will be applied to anything on the site, including sale items.

Apatoff said he believes that group buying fits in with the company’s social media strategy, which it is committed to having as part of its marketing mix. But it’s too early to say if they’ll do another offer.

“We’ve been happy with the partners that we are in business with now. We are happy with the company we are keeping,” he said.

The company did not disclose terms of the agreement, but said the acquisition would be instrumental in building out both its social and mobile initiatives.

Kosmix will join the newly formed @WalmartLabs and continue to be based in Silicon Valley, the company said.

Wal-mart said the @WalmartLabs team will work on building out its social and mobile commerce strategy to link together its bricks and mortar stores with e-commerce. Today, Wal-mart operates physical stores in 15 countries and e-commerce businesses in nine countries.

Kosmix was founded by Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman, who sold their first company, Junglee, to Amazon.com in 1998.

The six-year-old company Kosmix has raised $55 million in funding from Time Warner Investments, Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Dag Ventures, Bezos Expeditions, Jon Miller, and Ed Zander.

In explaining what the company does on its Web site, it writes: “On any given day, people share 830 million items on Facebook, upload 6.1 million photos to Flickr, add 2.1 million minutes of video to YouTube and send 65 million tweets. Kosmix cuts through this noise to find content that matters to you.”

It’s not particularly clear how Kosmix leads to better mobile and social interactions. The company may be best known for powering TweetBeat, which it defines as a real-time social media filter for live events. It also operates Kosmix.com, where people go to discover social content by topic, and it operates RightHealth, which it claims to be one of the top three health and medical information sites by reach.

The transaction is subject to the customary closing conditions; the company anticipates it will close during the first half of this year.

Last week, the six-month-old service’s profile received a big boost after eBay announced it was buying its parent company, GSI Commerce, for $2.4 billion.

As part of the acquisition, eBay plans to spin off a few of the company’s properties to create a well-funded entity.

The spin-off includes ShopRunner, GSI’s licensed sports merchandise business, and Rue La La, a flash sales site. EBay, which is retaining a 30 percent stake in the new entity, is also loaning it nearly $500 million in capital.

ShopRunner, which is headquartered along with GSI outside Philadelphia in King of Prussia, is positioning itself as a defensive play for retailers that are competing against the Amazonian e-commerce giant.

Amazon Prime members pay $79 a year for free two-day shipping on all orders, and more recently, Prime added additional perks, such as free access to 5,000 streaming movies. Similarly, consumers pay ShopRunner $79 for free two-day shipping, but it works across a number of retailers, such as Borders, Barnes & Noble, Toys R Us, Drugstore.com, PetSmart and 40 sites in all.

Mike Golden, ShopRunner president and co-founder of GSI Commerce, says the service is super relevant today as retailers try to defend themselves against Amazon’s increasing dominance.

Not only is it growing its market share online, but it is also becoming a threat in physical stores. He said consumers are increasingly looking at brick-and-mortar stores as showcases, where they can touch and feel products, but then use their smartphones to comparison shop and buy online.

With free two-day shipping, Prime has become the modern day loyalty program.

But it’s unclear how successful Amazon’s so-called Prime service has been since launching in 2005.

Golden claims he’s done his homework and believes it is one of the smartest moves by the Seattle-based retailer to date. And by tracking what analysts have said and by conducting focus groups with dozens of Amazon’s Prime customers, he feels he has a fairly good handle on how well Amazon is doing.

Amazon does not release data on Amazon’s Prime service, and a spokesperson did not return a request for comment.

So, with that in mind, here’s a bullet point list of Golden’s estimates, which he considers conservative:

• In nine purchases out of ten, a Prime consumer would have already qualified for free shipping because their order was above $25. Now, Amazon is collecting $79 a year and all they had to do was upgrade one out of 10 shipments.
• Out of the 25 million items Amazon sells, he believes only 30 percent are eligible for Prime (the item has to be stored in Amazon’s own warehouses to qualify). That means Amazon has an impressive seven to 10 million products that are eligible.
• There are at least five million Prime users in the U.S.
• After joining Prime, users spend two to three times more.
• Prime members were already some of Amazon’s best customers, who were spending on average $600 a year. With Prime, that goes up to $1,200 to $1,800.
• In total, Prime members spend roughly $7.5 billion annually.
• 88 percent of Prime members start their shopping experience on Amazon, rather than any other portal, like Google.

Golden said the three attributes that have made Amazon successful are: having a huge assortment of products, having a huge reach in terms of customers and being a place where people shop frequently. ”We don’t think there’s any other retailer that has the strength to replicate the value proposition that Prime has,” he said. “How do you compete with Prime? You have to have a stronger value prop, not a weaker one, and all we’ve seen launch so far has been weaker and has failed.”

Other stores have tried one-off super saver shipping programs, including Sears, William Sonoma, Walmart and Overstock.

He said what they needed was a coalition.

While Golden was generously willing to share what he knew about Amazon’s Prime program, he was fairly mum about how ShopRunner’s math pencils out. Of course…

But roughly speaking, he said the membership fees consumers pay, along with the cost of two-day shipping, is split among the retailers and ShopRunner, which is then compensated for managing the program.

This week, ShopRunner launched a Marketplace where members can visit one location to search for products they want. This way, they don’t have to memorize which retailers are associated with the program. When searching for watches, you’ll see results from Toys R Us, Drugstore.com, Calvin Klein, Sports Authority and Lord & Taylor. Once an item is clicked on, the user is redirected to that retailer’s Web site to complete the transaction.

Next month, ShopRunner will roll out an iPhone application that allows people to search for merchandise in the store, but ultimately buy from one of the participating retailers online.

He said ShopRunner has more than five million items available overall. When they launch an additional 40 retailers soon, it will have 10 million items, which is getting close to Amazon’s scale.

Golden said the lines between brick and mortar and e-commerce are blurring. It’s no longer a weakness to have low inventory in a story if you can steer users to your online site, where they can get free shipping. A mobile application can help with that–and no longer be considered a threat.

“By using ShopRunner along with smart use of leveraging your store footprints and your e-commerce and distribution centers, they have a better chance of not making it a weakness or a threat, but a competitive advantage,” Golden said.

The appointment comes on the heels of LivingSocial’s latest fundraising efforts, of which details started to leak out today. The Washington, D.C.-based daily deals company has reportedly attracted around $500 million in additional funding at a $3 billion valuation.

According to sources, those figures are accurate and that an announcement from LivingSocial should come soon.

What’s more, sources said the company is now on track to book more than $1 billion in revenues this year, which is double the conservative figure the company reported only four months ago.

As to Ashe, he is an interesting choice for LivingSocial’s board.

Most recently, Ashe (pictured here) was the president of CBS Interactive. He stepped down in December, but it was unclear at the time where the executive was headed.

Ashe joined CBS through the acquisition of CNET, where he was CEO. Sources said his role at LivingSocial is strictly as a board member; he will not be taking a managerial role.

Other LivingSocial board members include: Tim O’Shaughnessy, co-founder and CEO; Eddie Frederick, president and co-founder; Tige Savage of Revolution; Ted Maidenberg of USVP; Don Rainey of Grotech Ventures and Peter Krawiec of Amazon. Krawiec joined after Amazon invested $175 million, as part of the company’s round announced in December.

Ashe’s appointment to the board will add additional expertise as the company bulks up to go against market-leading Groupon. It must also fend off other entrants, ranging from such giants as Facebook and Google to more scrappy one-off niche sites focused on categories, such as families, pets or religions.

While Groupon grabs a lot of the spotlight, LivingSocial is growing rapidly too.

It has 1,200 employees and has expanded into a dozen international markets. It is adding about one million users a week to its email list, and has roughly 25 million in total.

VCExperts.com is reporting on the document filed by Hungry Machine, the holding company for LivingSocial. The document serves as authorization for the fundraising, but doesn’t necessarily mean that the company has raised a dime.

In the filing, VCExperts explains that LivingSocial’s Series E will have an “Original Issue Price” of $5.651 per share with 100 million shares authorized–or equal to more than $500 million.

What’s more, if LivingSocial sells the round out, its valuation could soar to as high as $3 billion based on the 630 million authorized common shares.

A company spokesperson has not yet returned a request for comment. [Update: The New York Times is reporting that last week LivingSocial raised $400 million from existing investors like Amazon, Lightspeed Venture Partners and several new ones, including T. Rowe Price and Institutional Venture Partners, according to unnamed sources.]

LivingSocial is the second-largest daily deals site, trailing behind Groupon of Chicago, which recently raised almost $1 billion in capital. Groupon is considered to be worth roughly twice as much, or $6 billion, based on Google’s bid for the company late last year.

Right now, it’s a land grab to be the largest provider in the space.

Both LivingSocial and Groupon kicked off national TV ad campaigns during the Super Bowl, and have been aggressively building out their footprints worldwide. There’s plenty of competitors nipping at their heels, but nothing getting close to either company’s scale.

While both companies are considered revenue-generating machines, both appear to have the idea that it’s worth raising as much capital as possible while it’s cheap. An initial public offering is among the potential outcomes for both companies, and Groupon has been reported to be talking to investment banks about the logistics.

LivingSocial’s previous investors include Amazon.com, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Revolution Fund, Grotech Ventures and U.S. Venture Partners.

The Seattle-based company–which operates out of the city’s industrial and gritty Georgetown neighborhood, better known for artists and breweries–was founded by Dan Shapiro, who merged his last company, Ontela, with Photobucket.

Similar to the Kayak travel site, the Web site uses sliders to determine such features as price, speed and weight sensitivity. Other features that can be checked are “big screen,” “great for gaming”, “great for Photoshop,” and “3D.”

“This exists for travel, like Kayak and Hipmunk,” said Shapiro, who came up for the idea when he left Photobucket and was looking for a personal laptop that was cheap, lightweight and featured long battery life.

Because he was so baffled by the options, he actually hired a contractor in Pakistan for $50 to research his options and enter the information into a spreadsheet.

That’s the model the company now uses to get its data. Instead of searching the Internet or crawling retailers’ Web sites, Sparkbuy has hired a team of researchers to manually enter the information into a database.

Currently, it has 20,000 reports on roughly 2,000 laptops. There’s so many reports because each report is entered at least three times to ensure accuracy.

The company will make money on referral fees for sending consumers to a retailer’s Web site, similarly to how Kayak makes money when someone discovers a cheap hotel room.

The site launches today with links to Amazon.com and Newegg. Next month, it expects to add HP, MacMall, OnSale, PC Mall, and Toshiba Direct.

Sparkbuy, which has raised $1 million in capital and has four full-time employees, is also collecting data on the myriad of tablets launching over the next few months. Today, it has data on 70, ranging from the $99 Pyrus 7″ Android tablet to the Windows 7 Asus tablet with keyboard for $449 and to the fully loaded iPad 2 for $927.

As part of the acquisition, it will spin off a few of the company’s properties to create a well-funded new entity that will be led by GSI’s founder and CEO Michael Rubin.

EBay said it will acquire GSI to help retailers and big brands move into both online and mobile commerce. GSI helps more than 180 leading retailers and brands, including Timberland, RadioShack, Calvin Klein, Levi’s and Ralph Lauren.

But eBay and GSI have identified a few parts of the business that will remain independent.

EBay said it will divest GSI’s licensed sports merchandise business and 70 percent of ShopRunner and Rue La La. EBay will loan the holding company $467 million and retain a 30 percent stake in Rue La La and ShopRunner. In addition, Rubin will invest $31 million in cash.

Rue La La operates in the emerging flash-sales business, competing against companies like Gilt Groupe. GSI purchased Rue La La in 2009 for $350 million in cash and stock. Meanwhile, ShopRunner is similar to Amazon’s Prime membership. It charges members $79 a year for unlimited free two-day shipping with no minimum order from a variety of retailers across the Web.

The spin-off will also include Fanatics, a Jacksonville, Florida-based company that operates more than 250 e-commerce Web sites, including 60 e-commerce stores for collegiate and professional sports. GSI’s acquisition of the company closed only two weeks ago.

While all these companies sound complementary to eBay, the company said they are not core to its long-term growth strategy.

In a conference call this morning, eBay President and CEO John Donahoe, explained that it was important to spin off Fanatics and GSI’s sports licensing business because “we don’t want to be in competition with sellers, and that business would be in competition with them.”

As for Rue La La and Shoprunner, the reasons were a little different. “I would characterize it as a near-term operating loss and a huge opportunity that if we tried to realize, we’d probably screw it up. In Michael, we see a guy who can take those concepts to a level we couldn’t imagine, and our 30 percent investment is our indication of what we think Michael could do over time,” he said.

The Nintendo 3DS, which allows players to see 3-D images without special glasses, will go on sale in the U.S. on Sunday for $250.

Amazon is already claiming that the Nintendo 3DS was the biggest console launch ever on Amazon.com. It sold more units on January 19–the day it was announced–than any console had before, including the slimmed-down versions of the Xbox 360 last year and the PS3 the year before.

GameStop, which will open 800 of its stores worldwide at midnight on sales day, said pre-sales were strong. “Demand has been so strong that, literally, we are working every day with Nintendo to ensure that we have sufficient product. And they have been very good partners on this, and we fully expect to have sufficient product at launch; the demand is very strong,” said GameStop’s President Tony Bartel during the company’s earnings call yesterday, according to a SeekingAlpha transcript.

Nintendo expects to ship about four million 3DS units worldwide by the end of March, and said 1.5 million of those will likely be in Japan. The device went on sale in Europe today.

The original DS has been insanely popular over the years.

Nintendo has sold more than 47 million portable video game systems in the U.S. since the original model launched in November 2004. By its own measures, it says, that makes Nintendo DS the nation’s best-selling video game system of all time.

Still, it’s unclear whether the 3-D mechanism will draw a new audience, or whether it’s enough to encourage current users to upgrade.

In other words, can the 3DS repeat history? There’s a handful of reasons why this could be game over.

Nintendo warned that children under the age of six should not view the 3-D images due to health concerns, although optometrists have since largely dismissed the worries.

Another concern is price.

The device costs $250, which is $100 more than the original. The games are also $10 more expensive at $39 each.

Finally, there’s the competition.

The Nintendo products are attractive because they don’t require a monthly fee. Increasingly, however, smartphones are offering an equal gaming experience. Apple’s iPad and iPod touch also don’t have monthly fees, and those devices have thousands of games for much less than $39. If 3-D is important, two smartphones were unveiled this week at CTIA with 3-D capabilities–without glasses.

Katie Boehret of The Wall Street Journal and All Things Digital gave the device a mixed review, calling out its clunkiness and remarking that the images sometimes made her dizzy.

However, the device offers a lot more features than the old model. In May, it’s expected to get a software update that will enable downloadable games and add a Web browser.

On launch day, users will have a choice of dozens of game titles, including several created by Nintendo, such as Pilotwings Resort, Nintendogs + Cats: Golden Retriever & New Friends, and Steel Diver.

Typically, the launch of new hardware spurs a spike in game sales.

It’s Ubisoft’s intention to launch more 3DS titles than any other third-party video game publisher this week to ride that wave. It has four titles ready at launch, including Asphalt 3D, Combat of Giants, Dinosaurs 3D and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon. In all, it has more than 15 games in development for the platform.

All of Ubisoft’s games at launch will be in 3-D; however, a toggle on the device allows you to convert the images to 2-D. The games also take advantage of other new features, such as the accelerometer, which in Asphalt 3D allows you to steer the car with motion control.

Ubisoft SVP of Sales and Marketing Tony Key said the goal is to be No. 1 on the platform. “The thing is going to be hot. Our initial prediction is that it will be hard to get your hands on one. It’s going to sell out. All kinds of people will be trying to buy one, ranging from the core gaming men to tweens to every gamer segment out there,” he said. “As fast as Nintendo can make them is as fast as they will be able to sell them.”

Both Amazon and GameStop are providing incentives for current DS owners to upgrade. They are offering $50 to $100 in trade-in credit on old gaming units, depending on the device.

Nintendo, which is based in Kyoto, Japan, has previously said that there’s been no apparent damage to its headquarters after the recent earthquake, and that business operations, including future product shipments, haven’t been affected.

The company–whose roots are in e-commerce and not mobile–aspires to merchandise and sell apps better than Google does on its own platform.

And, potentially as well as Apple, which up until now has been the shining star in mobile.

Beginning tonight, the Appstore will be accessible online at amazon.com/appstore. Android owners will also be able to download a version of the store to their handset. The store will support hundreds of mobile operators and hardware manufacturers.

Amazon has been recruiting developers since at least January to convince them to get on board with the venture. Initially, users will have access to a catalog of 3,800 applications.

While selling apps is not a particular stretch for the company since it already dabbles in a lot of digital content, like music and e-books, working with mobile developers is not exactly a home run since their time and attention is fragmented among so many competing stores and platforms.

However, the company’s efforts seem to be paying off.

At launch, apps will be available from dozens of developers, spanning big names like Gameloft, Handmark and Glu Mobile. (It’s also worth noting that its efforts have also not gone unnoticed by Apple, which is suing Amazon, claiming trademark infringement and unfair competition over the name.

To start, the store will be nowhere near the long tail of applications found on Android Market or Apple iTunes, which respectively have catalogs of roughly 150,000 and 350,000 applications. But Amazon is trying to make a big splash in terms of quality. The store launches today with an Angry Birds exclusive to its new hit game based on the movie Rio.

“The developer response has been really strong,” said Aaron Rubenson, category leader for Amazon Mobile Services. “We’ll be launching with a broad range of paid and free and the customers will find lots of best selling titles from Doodle Jump to Call of Duty to Zagat and Tweetcaster. The list goes on and it’s just day one. We are adding more every single day.”

One problem that Amazon is trying to solve is discoverability.

While there’s a huge number of apps in the market, customers have a hard time finding the ones they want to buy. Conversely, developers have a hard time monetizing.

Amazon will be doing four things to help with that:

• Amazon will offer one free app a day to help with promotion.
• Amazon will offer a feature called Test Drive, which will allow a customer to try an app out before they buy. The technology is using Amazon’s cloud services. Users will be able open and use the app from within their computer browser. The simulation will last for about 30 minutes at which point they’ll have to buy it.
• Lastly, Amazon will drive recommendations based on a user’s purchase history. If they are someone who purchases cook books and high-end utensils, Amazon may recommend a recipe app.
• Amazon is also enabling one-click purchasing for anyone with a credit card on file.

The retailer is also doing a few uncharacteristic things, including being the one to set the price of the app.

For instance, if the developer recommends the app be sold at $1, and Amazon agrees, they’ll make 70 percent, or 70 cents on each download. If Amazon decides to make it free for a day, the developer will make 20 percent off their original recommendation of $1, or 20 cents. The developer will always make whichever is greater.

Rubenson said the response has been positive. “As we’ve gotten closer to launch and have talked more tactically about our merchandising capabilities and programs, they [developers] are getting very excited about the potential.”

Amazon is clearly banking on Android’s success since it is unlikely to ever sell iPhone applications on Apple’s closed system. With more than 300,000 phones based on the operating system being activated everyday, and many more tablets coming, the company sees it as a very large opportunity.

Rubenson said Amazon works closely with Google in a number of ways, especially as a major reseller of its devices. It also maintains a site called Android 101, which teaches customers about the OS. “In that regard we are engaged on multiple fronts,” he said. “But one of the strengths of the OS is the openness. We’ve taken that and focused on making the best possible store for customers.”

So far, Amazon will mostly rely on driving traffic to their store through their own referrals. However, increasingly they expect to partner with carriers or handset makers. Rubenson said its first third-party partnership will be with Cellular South, which will make the Appstore available to its customers through preloads and other methods.

He declined to discuss revenue splits or the financial relationship with partners.