Burbank-based Shooka.com recently went live with its daily giveaway site. The Group Giveaway Platform, which launched this month, uses an online marketing model similar to that of Livingsocial.com and Groupon.com, but it uses giveaways instead of discounted items as an incentive for consumers to sign up with merchants. This is how it works: merchants engage with the websites active community through the giveaways that are activated when the required number of people signs up to be on the merchant’s mailing list. Once the sign-ups are filled, the automated system closes the giveaway and randomly informs the winners through email. Tigran Mekikian, co-founder of Shooka.com, said the company partnered with hockey team Los Angeles Kings, back in March to do a “test run” on the site. Since then, the team committed to three more contests through Shooka.com. Mekikian said the site is the future of “Daily Deal sites” because it provides solutions that benefit not only the consumers but also the merchants. He said merchants will flock to the model because “at the end of the day when you select to participate in Daily Deals services what you are really committing is marketing dollars.”