Two weeks ago it unveiled Groupon Now, a smartphone app that gives immediate, localized deals.
It has also been pushing into real time mobile offerings with Groupon Now.
Kara asks about the Groupon Now business, which so far has launched only in Chicago, New York and San Francisco.
Rival Groupon responded with Groupon Now, its own real-time deals app in May, which it rolled out in its hometown of Chicago.
FORBES: LivingSocial To Expand Instant Deals to San Francisco Next Week
With Groupon NOW not showing the whirlwind results that Groupon expected, the company does need a differentiator from the otherwise highly duplicable daily deal market.
FORBES: Groupon Cooks Up A Nifty Scheduler But Stock Is More Than Fully Baked
For consumers who face consistent decision paralysis because of the amount of choice they face everyday, Groupon Now acts as an extension of their brain to make decisions for them.
Meanwhile start-ups like Shopkick, a mobile app that provides customers with offers and rewards when they walk into a store, and Groupon Now, the mobile version of the social shopping service, are creating a cacophony of digital offer options on-the-go through the smartphone.
FORBES: Make A Mobile Digital Offer Your Customers Can't Refuse
Now Groupon has nearly a 1, 000 employees, or nearly five times the payroll.
This is why the Groupon IPO, now reportedly postponed, is so controversial.
FORBES: Groupon��an Ordinary Company for a Revolutionary New Era
With Groupon and Zynga now in registration, and Facebook and Twitter IPOs looming further out, the issue is no small matter to venture capitalists, Internet company insiders, investment bankers, Valley real-estate brokers and wide variety of other people.
FORBES: Will The IPO Window Close? Recent Deals Cratering In Sell Off
And in the pipeline for future IPOs, the market is looking forward to Groupon, Facebook and now Zynga.
The only question now is if Groupon has anything to offer to another entity.
Social media behemoth Facebook is field-testing its Groupon competitor in select cities now.
As of now, the Groupon board lacks executives with operating experience.
FORBES: What If the Groupon Business Model Was Right -- And the Problem is Just Crummy Execution?
Xing Wang, the creator of Xiaonei which Renren acquired and built into its social networking house, is now running a GroupOn-type model in China, Meituan.
The bottom line: The Groupon idea is popular among consumers now, but it has its caveats.
And Groupon has one thing, right now, that none of the Web vanguard do: a rigid pipeline directly into the marketing engines of small, local businesses.
FORBES: By rejecting Google, Groupon swings for tech immortality.
By now you may be wondering how Groupon is a lot like the Kentucky Derby.
Groupon, at least, has (for now) stopped the bleeding.
FORBES: Angie's List Below IPO Price; LNKD Also Extends Drop
Both Zynga and Groupon, after going public last year, are now trading below their initial share prices.
There should be no doubt about the short-term overestimation, given the initial exuberance and now the collapse of stocks like Zynga, Groupon and Facebook.
FORBES: Bubble Deflated, Social Media Will Now Change the World
With services such as the iPhone app Scoutmob and e-mail offerings such as Groupon and Living Social Deals, experts say it's now hip to be cheap.
Now Experian Hitwise is reporting a significant drop-off in Groupon traffic this summer, nearly 50% since its peak in the second week of June 2011 compared to last week.
State regulators are only just now taking notice: In February Massachusetts sent a letter to Groupon demanding it stop allowing vouchers for alcohol, saying it violates a 1984 happy hour law, and requested details on all its deals.
When Groupon went public in 2011, Mason drew yet more sets of critical eyes, now in the form of Wall Street analysts and the journalists they run with.
On the other hand, if Groupon is wrong and it has to keep spending to attract customers the way it is now, then it will likely never be profitable and those ad dollars will go away anyway.
FORBES: If Groupon Is Right, Hyperlocal Sites Are In Trouble
There is tremendous Monday morning quarterbacking now about the dive in Web 2.0 companies, from Facebook to Zynga to Groupon to Pandora.
Groupon, the pioneer in the daily deals sector, has struggled in the public market, and now trades at just a fraction of its 2011 IPO price.
FORBES: The Local Deals Market Version 2.0: Syndicated Commerce
Groupon has faced other serious challenges to its business model from huge players like Amazon and local newspapers who now offer daily deals to their advertisers.
应用推荐