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Ok, help me understand this - if Google really wanted to get into this business, and if they couldn't acquire Groupon, then why didn't they try to acquire Groupon clones like LivingSocial, and many more? What could be rational behind starting from scratch?

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After Amazon's investment into LivingSocial, the valuation shot into "over $1 billion" http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/02/livingsocial-confirms-175-m... but controlling only 8% of the market, vs Groupon's 79%. It would have been a very expensive acquisition.

For everything else near 0% market share, Google can probably easily get ahead on its own brand name.

Google acquires mainly technology and talent, or in some cases it would pay big bucks to acquire marketshare. There is not much technology behind group buying things. And none of the Groupon competitors have the marketshare Google wants. Thats why it makes more sense for Google to spend that billion dollars on advertising/promotion etc. to gain probably more marketshare than getting LivingSocial's 10% or whatever.

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