Local advertising will be as big (if not bigger) than AdWords, ergo Groupon is the new Google. No wonder they turned them down.
I don't spend much money locally. I spend it online.
I suspect your spending habits are fairly unusual.
Yeah I shop for various things in town, but I can't be bothered with vouchers for them.
I guess if you're a very promiscuous restaurant goer who lives in a city, then this could be useful for you, but it's hardly in the same ballpark as Google.
From a revenue driving. Local Search > Search, Local Couponing > AdWords. Therefore, Groupon > Google.
If you could show me how Local Search could exist outside of search, then you might have an argument, but right now, I just don't see it.
I doubt very much that Google doesn't generate at least some of their own power.
I'm quite confident that they can exist outside of any single power company.
Does the analogy hold after this premise is eliminated?
Saying that the analogy (argument) rests on "the fact that..." pretty blatantly begs the question.
Is there a case where one company is both bigger than and wholly[1] depends on another, single company's services?
I would be unsurprised if the answer is "no" and that this is the case because dependents are invariably absorbed or killed off by the "parent" before they can grow larger.
[1] If the issue is monopoly, then my "quibble" is that, to Google (or any other electricity consumer beyond a modest size), no company has a monopoly on power.
By actual revenue? Google is AdWords.
I don't think Groupon will necessarily end up bigger than Google, but they may end up fairly comparable. The point is, Groupon is a fairly young startup with some growth left in it and Google is a mature, publicly-traded company. As a business (rather than as a social force or a technical harbinger), Google rounds down to web advertising. To beat Google as a business, you have to beat Google's web advertising. Groupon can do that.
Groupon could definitely end up being bigger than Google.
Some local coupon startup thingy bigger than Google? u-huh.
People have been saying 'local is gonna be big' for years. I don't see why. Why do they think more money will be spent locally than people already spend other places?
And the amount people spend on local commerce absolutely dwarfs all online spending, let alone online advertising.
That said, I don't understand why they are seen to be a technology company. They are basically a massive sales organization. I'm sure they use technology to tie together their sales automation, but I doubt it's anything more significant than any other IT installation at any other medium-sized sales-oriented company.
Perhaps I'm missing something. Why is Groupon hailed as a technological marvel?
No one has said that Groupon is a technical marvel, but there are the usual challenges involved in high traffic website as well as a lot of development on new initiatives, internationalization, etc. Groupon is making big investments in its technology platform this year. Look for some news about it in January.