lotusleaf1987

They have a list of some ~60,000 merchants, email addresses in the tens of millions, no patents or 'moat', and they're trying to sell a dollar for fifty cents and make a profit. Also, how do you scale when you have 8,000 employees? That's a huge fixed cost. And these aren't huge barriers to entry for your competition--Twitter/Facebook/any website with an audience can basically do this.

I don't see how their model is sustainable and the entire premise of their success seems wrested on Groupon succeeding at things they haven't demonstrated yet.

Also, I see Groupon as a sales company, not a tech company.

Your favorite subject is always yourself.

Why should I care about this? Was bitcoin in the headline earlier?

Why is it necessary to "give up your ability to fit in with your own people" to understand another culture? Why would understanding America and Singapore mutually exclusive?

I know people who have lived abroad for a few years and returned--they weren't fundamentally changed or different, same person new life experiences is all.

Simple, Google is worried Groupon theoretically could get a huge share of local advertising like they were with Yelp.

Google isn't infallible, they are mortal. I think most likely they were willing to overpay because they could afford it and are desperate to get into "social".

Also, Groupon is a ponzi scheme because they use new investor money to pay old investors--not because they don't have a moat, which they dont-- no patents, 8000 employees and how do you scale with that many employees, a list of merchants and user emails.

At best they end up looking more like Avon.

There are almost zero barriers to entry. Groupon has a list of a few thousand merchants, a few million emails, 8000 employees, and sells a dollar for fifty cents. How can you scale with so many employees and ever be profitable? It's not sustainable at all. They have no patents or any semblance of a defensive moat. Groupon is also declining in the cities it first launched in like Boston. Their future does not look good.

Your comment is spot on except your hyperbolic and unnecessary attack on social security.

Groupon figured out a way to sell a dollar for $.50, and they use money from new investor's to pay the old-- just like a ponzi scheme.

Also what does Groupon have? A few thousand merchants, a few million email addresses, no patent portfolio, no moat so to speak-- and the fact they need 8000 employees mostly dedicated to sales means they can't scale well--ever.

Most likely Groupon has 6 months to a year before the money evaporates. If not then they end up like Avon or Snap-On tools at best.

The difference is... Groupon can never scale well and have great profitability-- they need 8000 employees to do what? They have a list of merchants and a database of emails and what else? As pointed out on another HN thread, Amazon built a moat what has Groupon done?

| edw: No, I think they should license it to HTC and all the other Android handset manufacturers, given them one more feature bullet point in their long list of features that the iPhone lacks.

What are you talking about? To follow your absurd scenario, you think if Apple gave this bizarre patent away, but none of their others, that the EFF should then turn around and backstab the inventors and license it to their rivals? Yeah that's real classy and makes a whole lot of sense..

Why do so many people see the world in these binaries? Good/evil, black/white, red/blue.

Why that's a total non-sequitur? If the patent is only specifically related to Apply products, then they should keep it to themselves.

There's no incentive for Apple to produce/sell this device.

This is always someone's reaction when someone calls bubble. I don't think it's justified you have to short the stock to be skeptical.

This is a purely defensive act to keep some company from producing a device that blocks Apple devices, but they can still make one for WebOS/Blackberry/Android/WP7.They're doing it to prevent someone else from producing/selling a similar device.

Steve Jobs at HP on his first gig at age 12, after calling Hewlett-Packard President Bill Hewlett: When I was 12 or 13, I wanted to build something and I needed some parts, so I picked up the phone and called Bill Hewlett—he was listed in the Palo Alto phone book. He answered the phone and he was real nice. He chatted with me for, like, 20 minutes. He didn’t know me at all, but he ended up giving me some parts and he got me a job that summer working at Hewlett- Packard on the line, assembling frequency counters. Assembling may be too strong. I was putting in screws. It didn’t matter; I was in heaven. I remember my first day, expressing my complete enthusiasm and bliss at being at Hewlett-Packard for the summer to my supervisor, a guy named Chris, telling him that my favorite thing in the whole world was electronics. I asked him what his favorite thing to do was and he looked at me and said, “To f*ck!” [Laughs] I learned a lot that summer.

Was this a real problem? Isn't there something more meaningful these legislators should be working on like jobs and our economy? What a charade.

I would consult an attorney asap.

Great point, then maybe avree (above) is correct and the code was indeed stolen.

I agree, but I just thought it was always a strong strategic move for Android because all the people who wanted to play Donkey Kong or Zelda would at least have the option to do so, whereas for iOS you have to jailbreak your device.

It seems like the timing is too coincidental/coordinated with the Sony Xperia Play phone launching. Why would you buy games from the PSN store when you can buy an emulator for $8 and then get the games for free? It's in Google's interest to keep Sony happy, more than it is a few developers. Google also leaves a loophole because you can still side-load the apps.

Sure and how many will they sell next year? Mario games, as a whole, have sold more than 210 million units: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario

One single ringtone, Crazy Frog, made its creators a cool half billion back in 2006: http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/09/welcome... Sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time. Also, price/availability makes a huge difference--how many platforms was Angry Birds sold on and how much did it cost compared to Mario?

Lady Gaga may outsell the Beatles this year, but in 2015 it's almost near certain the Beatles/Elvis/Frank Sinatra and other classics will still be selling. There is always going to be a demand for new product, but the iconic games/bands/movies are still as relevant as before and there will be demand to have these classics ported to the new medium.

I would think that more people would want to play Super Mario on their phones than Angry Birds just based on familiarity. How many billions of people know Mario and how to play it already? Final Fantasy 1/2/3 are selling well on iOS. What is your source for your assertion over what mainstream audiences want?

So Android is basically giving up their biggest competitive advantage to iPhone gaming? Android's emulators always seemed to trump iPhones wider selection of native games.

This is almost certainly a result of the launch of Sony's Xperia aka Playstation Android phone. Can't you still just sideload the app?

Maybe Amazon's Android store will allow the emulators back in? Or will Google be able to block this?

You're arguing against a strawman, most of the comments here have been positive and the article even says: But is a loss really a loss? The important aspect of this 99-cent promotion is the value of the increased traffic and awareness. It has new products to promote, Cloud Drive and Cloud Player...

Even John Gruber has been positive on the promotion: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/05/28/gaga-amazon

I bought the album just to get the 20GB Cloud drive space free for a year. Definitely a great deal and I'm sure the product awareness from the promotion was cheaper and more effective than traditional ads.

I wonder what the results would be if you substitute Apple for Google.

I know of a few companies where it's hard to find someone below the level of director, dozens of AVP/VP/SVPs, and at least 10 C-level execs. I think it's a way of attracting people without having to pay them more. This seems like a societal effect of over-credentialization.

See above: LNKD's p/e ratio is 1318 GOOG's p/e ratio is 20

LinkedIn's fundamentals are damning.

There's a reason they say sell in May. A lot of people think in June LinkedIn is going to take a beating. But who knows really, a lot of the time it is just a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I don't think anyone said ideas don't matter, it's just an idea isn't something unique you can leverage. Two people can have the same idea and when all things are equal, it's the execution that really matters. Look at Myspace vs Facebook, Zune vs iPod, Yahoo vs Google.

Security theater. It's just a simulation of safety.

I really don't think it's a zero sum trade and I think their contributions to society would be hard to compare. Microsoft although being a corporation, does facilitate a lot of communication and business processes and make a lot of things take less time than they once did. Also, I don't think the Foundation would be possible without MSFT's existence.

This is shameless and despicable. I'll go out of my way to never buy anything from them ever again.