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How Google can beat Groupon: Algorithmic Price-Sensivitiy Quotients

19 points by ahmadalia 16y ago

alanh 16y ago
I’m so tired of “How Google can…” and “What Google should do to…” posts. Enough already?
- ahmadalia 16y ago
  I agree. The problem is, no one will look at your work, profound as it might perhaps be, if you give it a boring title like 'A price discrimination degree transformation framework for understanding Groupon'. Trust me. I've tried already. Do you have any better suggestions?
  - zmitri 16y ago
    I think less verbiage would help a lot in the case of this article. You would get to the point much quicker and people would 'read' it instead of just give it a quick glance over.
    - ahmadalia 16y ago
      Agreed. Thanks.
- te_chris 16y ago
  I really don't understand why you got downvoted. It's just linkwhoring in some ways. "top 10 ways to..." how .. can ... to ...". opinion passed off as prophecy passed off as distraction.
trentonl 16y ago
How Google can beat Groupon: take 4 of the best developers, rent an apartment in Palo Alto, wait 3 months, take the Groupon clone they create and give everyone in the US $10 to signup: http://www.cringely.com/2011/01/bring-me-the-head-of-eric-schmidt/ http://www.cringely.com/2011/01/bring-me-the-head-of-eric-sc...
- diziet 16y ago
  Funny, but how do you get four developers to find the deals for the 100,000,000 americans and talk to the local businesses and administrate everything and and and..!
  - ahmadalia 16y ago
    His recommendation is brilliant. No one is saying that the platform the 4 engineers build has to be identical to Groupon's. Do you know why Groupon needed a $950 million round? Because scaling the business model requires the scaling of the sales and service organization. And that requires a lot of cash and working capital. Finances are the limiting mechanism on how fast they can grow. Also, their centralized sales and service organization, cloistered in their Chicago office, is not going to be as knowledgeable of local markets as natives. Local folk will always have an advantage in forging relationships with merchants. The point? If the platform the 4 engineers build externalizes the merchant facing function (sales/service) to local affiliates who are far better positioned to do it - and incidentally adheres to Google's own model of just being a platform - Google won't have to invest in building a sales and service organization. Local affiliates would deal with the merchants, do the marketing, sign the contracts, and do all the promotional design - essentially all the stuff done by the merchant facing side of Groupon - all for less than the 50% of revs, and would then use the Google platform to push out deals. The platform could follow an auction model like their current Adwords and Adsense platform. Local affiliates would bid to run the Google daily deal for their area. Groupon's business model is only version 1.0. If they don't innovate, they will be in trouble.

19 points by ahmadalia 16y ago

alanh 16y ago

I’m so tired of “How Google can…” and “What Google should do to…” posts. Enough already?

ahmadalia 16y ago
I agree. The problem is, no one will look at your work, profound as it might perhaps be, if you give it a boring title like 'A price discrimination degree transformation framework for understanding Groupon'. Trust me. I've tried already. Do you have any better suggestions?
- zmitri 16y ago
  I think less verbiage would help a lot in the case of this article. You would get to the point much quicker and people would 'read' it instead of just give it a quick glance over.
  - ahmadalia 16y ago
    Agreed. Thanks.
te_chris 16y ago
I really don't understand why you got downvoted. It's just linkwhoring in some ways. "top 10 ways to..." how .. can ... to ...". opinion passed off as prophecy passed off as distraction.

trentonl 16y ago

How Google can beat Groupon: take 4 of the best developers, rent an apartment in Palo Alto, wait 3 months, take the Groupon clone they create and give everyone in the US $10 to signup: http://www.cringely.com/2011/01/bring-me-the-head-of-eric-schmidt/ http://www.cringely.com/2011/01/bring-me-the-head-of-eric-sc...

diziet 16y ago
Funny, but how do you get four developers to find the deals for the 100,000,000 americans and talk to the local businesses and administrate everything and and and..!
- ahmadalia 16y ago
  His recommendation is brilliant. No one is saying that the platform the 4 engineers build has to be identical to Groupon's. Do you know why Groupon needed a $950 million round? Because scaling the business model requires the scaling of the sales and service organization. And that requires a lot of cash and working capital. Finances are the limiting mechanism on how fast they can grow. Also, their centralized sales and service organization, cloistered in their Chicago office, is not going to be as knowledgeable of local markets as natives. Local folk will always have an advantage in forging relationships with merchants. The point? If the platform the 4 engineers build externalizes the merchant facing function (sales/service) to local affiliates who are far better positioned to do it - and incidentally adheres to Google's own model of just being a platform - Google won't have to invest in building a sales and service organization. Local affiliates would deal with the merchants, do the marketing, sign the contracts, and do all the promotional design - essentially all the stuff done by the merchant facing side of Groupon - all for less than the 50% of revs, and would then use the Google platform to push out deals. The platform could follow an auction model like their current Adwords and Adsense platform. Local affiliates would bid to run the Google daily deal for their area. Groupon's business model is only version 1.0. If they don't innovate, they will be in trouble.