"And as location, purchase history, and timing come into play, the data is going to get big if you want to target deals well." Data, especially at scale, is ex

"And as location, purchase history, and timing come into play, the data is going to get big if you want to target deals well." Data, especially at scale, is extremely powerful in this business: http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/11/why-we-invested-in-groupon-the-power-of-data/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/11/why-we-invested-in-groupon-... The one question I continue to have in a situation like this is the "bytes v. beings" approach. Self-service is very compelling and certainly the "holy grail" of local advertising, but more often than not, the onramp to Google for small business is AdWords and that's hard, really hard to understand for a small business owner. I'm not sure if the small business owner is really reading through Google's AdWords University documents and watching the YouTube videos. You're going to need people to sell to people and not just bytes on a screen. The salesforce, in the immediate term, I feel is the largest initiative Google needs to take on. Demand will always be there, especially across their widespread network. Just get the best merchants (note: quality of the deal is still important in large markets like NYC) and perfect the sales process.