While I was writing an article last week about Google and Apple’s hearings before Congress—regarding the nature and functionality of location tracking in smartphones—I speculated about what movement profiles of smartphone subscribers would be useful for: Targeting consumers in real time based on their location. Making love connections between supply and demand on the fly, capturing and locking in demand for ‘by-the-seat-of-your-pants’ deals available that night, while rush-hour traffic was still in flux. I thought: “Wow, that would make markets so efficient. It would totally revolutionize the way that retailers and restaurants do business—just for starters.”

Last week, I was speculating about developments along these lines launching sometime this year. This week, it’s already happening. Groupon Now launched on Friday, May 20^th. I hadn’t been paying attention to developments over at Groupon it turns out.

This is the speed of recycle, ideation and recombinance in the tech world in 2011: gratification of demand-side desire and the exploitation and filling of almost any potential white space by the supply side happens almost instantaneously. Tuned to the tech news every morning, I sometimes marvel. It seems like we’re moving at light speed.

Groupon Now came out the day after LinkedIn’s public stock debut prompted commentators to proclaim: “The tech boom is back.”

Groupon’s CEO says that Groupon Now, “has been designed to promote serendipitous discovery of new experiences.” It is roughly the storefront equivalent of painting coming off the walls. Stores, restaurants, and other businesses will promote themselves directly to consumers who happen to be in the area by offering up-to-the-minute deals, rather than relying on the customers to walk through their front door.

Andrew Mason explains the impetus behind creating a service like Groupon Now. He points out that there’s a white space in the marketing arena; no marketing platform can help to create spontaneous experiences in real time. People default to doing what they know—they go to bars, or go to the movies. Consumers are hungry for a greater diversity of entertainment but are not willing or able to do the kinds of research to help connect them to these different experiences. “Right now, when people are bored, their brains tend to go toward a handful of safe activities…People have a limited vocabulary of things they do.” Groupon Now is designed to get around consumer recalcitrance and reluctance to explore.

It’s odd—isn’t it?—that Apple and Google are in so much trouble for owning databases that would potentially allow them to reach out to highly geo-targeted traffic in the same way that Groupon Now is already doing. Consumer engagement with Groupon Now will be voluntary, however, and that seems to make all the difference.

Groupon Now marks a shift in Groupon’s overall strategy, reach and potential. It changes the dynamic and relationship between the platform, the businesses utilizing it, and the consumer. They are moving from what was essentially a very complex, elegant, highly stylized series of email marketing campaigns to a richer and more interactive interface. Mason sums up this shift succinctly, saying that, “With daily deals [we were] pushing deals to people. With Groupon Now, we’re intercepting intent.” Having declined Google’s $6 billion buy-out last December, many commentators believed that Groupon’s growth potential was already reaching its ceiling and that competition from bigger companies (e.g. Facebook Deals, Google Offers) would quickly dismantle their momentum. With Groupon Now, Groupon is taking a quantum leap past their encroaching competitors, securing their lead over Deals, Offers and Living Social for some time to come.

In their top 100 brands report this year, Brand Z said that in 2010, “‘Engaging’ replaced ‘targeting’ in the marketing lexicon.” Groupon’s new strategies seem to be taking this cultural shift to heart.