Groupon can suck it!

[Bill Roy]

Yes but these challengers are not going to be small enterprise like you suggested. They are going to be huge companies, such as facebook. And I don't see Google going anywhere anytime soon. More likely the case, they would be forced to share the ad market.

How long have FaceBook been around? Did not FaceBook (like Google) start off as a small concern?

On the contrary by the way, Google does not have the advantage over Groupon, indeed the reverse is true in that Google must become innovative and must expend vast sums of money to take on Groupon. I am not saying this cannot be done in the market place of this potential battle, but Google has several disadvantages, a few of which are:

- Groupon is established in the market place
- Google will be seen as trying to 'elbow' into the market place, to become even more domineering which gets peoples heckles up
- Google is not seen as a good business partner by many already because of their track record in changing direction without a thought for their downline business partners (think domain parking splits for one example)
- There will be many others entering the same marketplace now having seen the success of Groupon
- Google always have to be ready to react to a myriad of other possible encroachments, thus dissipating their ability to concentrate on this possible particular battleground
- Groupon can now look at a valuation in the $billions, thus allowing them access to much needed credit should they need it in any coming battle
- Google will undoubtedly have to make many more unassociated expensive acquisitions before and during the possible battle with Groupon
- Groupon could look for a White Knight partner, possibly another search engine, to ally itself with against Google thus causing Google even more headaches and a much more expensive and long run battle than Google envisaged

Finally, it should be noted that one-day sales/deals have, as you say, been around for years, but it has taken Groupon to visualise and exploit the concept effectively. This shows an understanding of the targret marketplace and a determination that Google has not expressed in this field. Perhaps Groupon may not be a David against the Google Goliath, but there was also an army on both sides and undoubtedly Groupon is part of the Isralite army in this instance.

 

[Nathan King]

Don't think Google gains much traction. Remember Froogle that was supposed to come in and wipe out all the price comparison sites, they pretty much gave up on that and now it just forwards to Google Product Search which is still in beta, will always be in beta. Anybody using Google Buzz? Probably not. Got a lot of hype when it came out.

Does anybody use price comparison sites anymore? Only when they click on them in search results. I know some websites integrate them, but when I need to do price comparing I used Google Shopping.

---------- Post added at 06:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:11 PM ----------

How long have FaceBook been around? Did not FaceBook (like Google) start off as a small concern?

You can use this argument once Groupon gets to that level. Odds are against them though.

On the contrary by the way, Google does not have the advantage over Groupon, indeed the reverse is true in that Google must become innovative and must expend vast sums of money to take on Groupon.

I think this whole "group deals" thing is more a fad than anything. The bigger picture involves local advertising. Others are in a much better position to take on Google on this front rather than Groupon.

I am not saying this cannot be done in the market place of this potential battle, but Google has several disadvantages, a few of which are:

- Groupon is established in the market place

Groupon has only been around for a couple of years tops. This hardly constitutes "established"

- Google will be seen as trying to 'elbow' into the market place, to become even more domineering which gets peoples heckles up

BP's doing fine after their mess-up in the gulf. And that heckled a lot of people. Their shares have risen 165% since the decline that the bad press caused. BP shares are almost back to where they were prior to the event.

Google is not seen as a good business partner by many already because of their track record in changing direction without a thought for their downline business partners (think domain parking splits for one example)

This point is much bigger than Groupon. This is one area where there is room for improvement among competition, though it doesn't seem to have hindered Google's success thus far.

I see Groupon as more of a fad than anything. The bigger picture involves local advertising, which is an area that I don't see Groupon competing with Google in. Perhaps a different startup could find success in this area, but not Groupon IMO. It's gonna take some serious innovation to compete with Google on that front.

 

[jmcc]

Nathan remember Ancient Rome was defeated not by some massive other empire, it was worn down and failed to innovate.

Actually the change in weather patterns played a part. The same could be said of Google with the shift towards Social Media in the last few years. Search is no longer the primus inter pares . (First amongst equals).

This is generally the lesson of history, empires are bled to death rather than receive one mortal blow from a compeating empire.

And they also tend to overextend themselves and this stretching of resources is what makes them vulnerable.

The size of the individual challengers does not matter, it is their combined size of their pressure and the amount of combined damage and costs that they cause Google that will likely topple Google from the No. 1 spot in the end.

The danger for Google is that it is very much a one trick pony with a few embellishments that it has nicked from others. Apart from the Search element, most of the rest of its products are based on ideas developed elsewhere. It has beeen demolished when it tried to get into Social Media and Bing's deal with Facebook is one of the most dangerous threats to Google because of the data it can produce. Google's Interest Based Advertising was a very narrow minded approach to advertising that omitted the human element and didn't pay any attention to whether the person being targeted by this crude advertising method had actually found or bought what that for which they were searching. The result is that it can irritate users who see the same adverts for something after they had bought it. Data has always been Google's strength but it has begun to resemble Ask.com or Yahoo.com in that organic search results are being pushed down the page by advertising.

Groupon is something that the real world can identify with and that businesses can buy into without having to engage in PPC or hire some PPC expertise. It makes it easy for the business (the economics are open to question though). Whether Groupon becomes the next Pointcast (they turned down hundreds of millions of Dollars from Rupert Murdoch about eleven years ago) remains to be seen. Its central model is easily replicated and it is beginning to face competition in some markets.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Bill Roy]

Nathan I totally agree about 'local advertising', indeed so much so that I have personally heavily invested both time and money in this area of the internet.

You ignor the point that Google was just a small enterprise as was FaceBook, all I am saying is that to dismiss small enterprises is the mistake of many failed 'Big Businesses'.

With regard to 'fads', whether or not the Groupon model is a fad or not is neither here nor there, obviously Google does not think so as it was willing to part with $6billion for it. Besides which I remember not to long ago certain sitesas such as FaceBook and Twitter were by many just dismissed as 'fads'.

Concerning the fact that 'Groupon have only been around a couple of years' surely demonstrates that they (valued at $6billion) have somewhat succeeded and are established, do you know of a larger direct competitor for them in this market niche?

Where are BP trying to 'elbow' their way into the market place? Your comments here are like a politicians political sound-bite arguments, meaningless in the respect that you just grab a totally unrelated fact and try to bolster your argument without any logical link to the point in question.

Jmcc, as for weather patterns, may I suggest that changing weather patterns were nothing new, indeed it was the internal division between Rome and Constantinople that actually led to the demise of Rome by severly weakening its ability to react to both external and internal assaults. (My area of expertise may be European Palaeolithic to Neolithic archaeology but considering we have to dig through so much Roman to get to it I have had to study it in depth - unfortunately. I much prefer stones and bones.)

The point you make about overextention is true (as Google is doing IMO), they thus are unable to defend themselves on all fronts adequately, thus making them more vulnerable to attack, and hence smaller foes are able to inflict a greater degree of damage upon them, these damages when combined bleed the empire disproportionately to what would have occurred before the empire overextended.

Jmcc your other points I agree with.

(It's 1.23 am here so I look forward to reading this thread in about 6 or 7 hours time. Night all.)

 

[ninjadomain]

So much for Groupon ranking in the Google search!

 

[Nathan King]

Groupon is more of a stepping stone to the next generation of advertising, and I think that's why Google was willing to drop so much on them.

And I didn't ignore the point that Google and FaceBook were once small enterprises...I just doubt Groupon's chances of reaching that level. The "group deals" market isn't that big. The local ad market is. Thus far Groupon hasn't shown enough innovation to be considered a contender against Google in that market IMO. At least not in the long run.

 

[grcorp]

Google has the reach to tell people about their wonderful new service, but persuading them to participate in it is a whole other deal.

Simply put, Groupon has attained dominance over their product to the point that people will say "Groupon" before they say "group buying site". Or "Google" before they say "search engine". "Facebook" before "social network". "Kleenex" before "tissue". "Purell" before "hand sanitizer". "iPod" before "mp3 player". And so on.

It's too established for them to break into, no matter how much of a reach they have to tell people and pester them into signing up, buying, etc.

It failed with Google Video and their checkin service, just to name a couple of failures, and if they go ahead with this, they'll be in the same league as every other local daily deal wannabe.

Seriously, they've been in business for 2 and a half years. If they took that $6 billion offer, it would represent over $6 million in earnings per day or nearly $300,000 per hour.

Working for minimum earns about $60 a day. They're trying to get greedy - I'd take the sure thing.

 

[Bill Roy]

Nathan I also 'doubt' the ability of Groupon to grow significantly from this point. I actually think we broadly agree on this matter it is just the detail of the effect on Google that we have differing views.

grcorp, makes you wonder what figure Groupon had in mind that they would have accepted?

 

[Nathan King]

If you put relevant deals that are "too good to pass up" in front of interested consumers, they're gonna sell. Google has the data to know who's interested in what. This is a distinct advantage.

Of course Google's attempts at a daily deals site could flop (wouldn't surprise me), but then again I think this daily deals thing is being blown out of proportion (in the long-term). I'm more interested in the encompassing "hyper-local" market. I see Groupon as a stepping stone in this market, and that's why I think Google was willing to spend $6 billion on them.

Groupon isn't even close to being genericized like Kleenex and Google are. They might be just as greedy though.

Edit:
Just noticed I'm repeating myself. Time to catch some sleep.

---------- Post added at 03:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:41 AM ----------

Nathan I also 'doubt' the ability of Groupon to grow significantly from this point. I actually think we broadly agree on this matter it is just the detail of the effect on Google that we have differing views.

My stance on Google vs. Groupon was based on the hyper-local ad market, not the daily deals market. I wasn't sure what the argument was at first; I thought you were just looking to side against Google (Goliath) in a debate. And since you addressed me directly, I took the opposing view.

I could have been clearer in the post that you first quoted.

 

[Bill Roy]

My stance on Google vs. Groupon was based on the hyper-local ad market, not the daily deals market. I wasn't sure what the argument was at first; I thought you were just looking to side against Google (Goliath) in a debate.

My view point in this discussion was from seeing Groupon as just a part of the generalised assault on Goggle by numerous competitors both now and in the future. Although I am no supporter of Google my participation here was not 'against' Google par se, it was against any such organization/company which has grown too large and powerful (one could almost add 'for its own good'). So no 'side' was taken, although I have to admit of course that like many others I am capable of 'ranting' rather than discussing at times.

 

[Nathan King]

So no 'side' was taken, although I have to admit of course that like many others I am capable of 'ranting' rather than discussing at times.

Being addressed directly by name in the manner that you did had "hostile" connotations IMO. Not hostile in a bad way, but hostile in an aggressively argumentative way. Nothing wrong with that as I'm always down for a good debate. Perhaps it was just a miscommunication?

 

[Bill Roy]

Nathan my apologies, indeed no personal hostility was meant at all, my intention was simply to direct points to the author, in this case it happened to be you. I enjoy a good discussion/debate, that is how we learn as it causes us to question our own points of view. Hey, perhaps you and I should act as the negotiators for Google and Groupon! k:

 

[grcorp]

grcorp, makes you wonder what figure Groupon had in mind that they would have accepted?

You could have offered them a trillion dollars and they wouldn't have taken it. They just like the idea of having consistent income for what seems like forever.

What they've become too blinded to see, is that there is no guarantee this will continue, and to take a surefire buck now than an illusion of dollars in the future is the most financially wise route to take.

 

[ksinclair]

Groupon would have done very well to take the Google offer; but Groupon is strong. They are doing well and will continue to grow. Google sucks at new services, look at Buzz - stupidest thing I ever saw. Google is big, so they must succeed? Is that the argument? Google tried to do video but had to buy their way in, and they recently shut announced that their other service, Google Video, will be shut down in a matter of weeks. Or look at Wave, google wanted to re-invent email, it was bizarrely bad. I got dizzy just looking at the demo.

Of course there will be competitors, so what.

FB is getting into it. They already have one deals kind of page, and now they have a new deals service. But you have to first ask, why do people go to Facebook? If they go on FB for just social reasons, for quick checks of status, or to see in some way if they are getting any personal attention today, then who cares if FB has a deals page.

Right now my vote is that Groupon grows, and is successful. They dont need or expect the whole market.