Google buys Groupon £1.6 billion

[boxerdog]

Google is rumoured to have secured a deal to acquire one of the fastest growing companies in the web's history

http://www.itpro.co.uk/628984/google-to-splash-2-5-billion-on-groupon

 

[Systreg]

Am I the only one who has never heard of Groupon?

 

[JMOT]

Am I the only one who has never heard of Groupon?

yes

 

[accelerator]

Why does it start referring to Groupcon half way down the article?

I wouldn't be surprised if this deal was true. It is to bridge the gap between online and offline marketing. That's why I regged LocalCode.co.uk and I hope a trend conscious developer will buy it off me.

Rgds

 

[mat]

groupola :lol:

 

[Edwin]

If it's really making $50 million a month or anywhere near that, it's a very cheap price since it's only 4x annual revenues. And if they're growing like crazy, it's probably more like 2x forward annual revenue! Smart move by Google - they're slowly learning not to let hockey-stick growth-curve companies escape...

And BTW, although I'd vaguely heard of Groupon before that article, I didn't (and still don't really) know what it is they actually do...

 

[mat]

And BTW, although I'd vaguely heard of Groupon before that article, I didn't (and still don't really) know what it is they actually do...

geo targeted deals...

 

[BREWSTERS]

Wow! Two years from zero to £1.6billion....only on the internet, nowhere else offers that type of opportunity.

The $50m per month in the article is revenue, not profit. They must be spending a fortune on advertising; with Google! Great synergie - it'll cost them nothing to buy over a few years.

 

[Bailey]

I seem to recall that the Groupon banner was here on Acorn when i joined a couple of months ago

 

[retired_member21]

Hmm I'm sensing roll out into local search results

 

[fish]

I seem to recall that the Groupon banner was here on Acorn when i joined a couple of months ago

For a while their ads where on everything like the proverbial rash, you couldn't fail to miss them (except Systreg)

 

[GreyWing]

For a while their ads where on everything like the proverbial rash, you couldn't fail to miss them (except Systreg)

and GW, must be living in a box but don't recall the group or know what they did until this thread.

 

[paulleahy]

I had emails from them for a while didnt reply though thought they were begging letters :lol:

 

[ukdomains]

groupola :lol:

Groupola cloned groupon

 

[charlie]

Am I the only one who has never heard of Groupon?

nope i havent either - i dont get out much

looks good though - not sure how the moniterize $50m
do they have the numbers in europe to make it work here?

 

[brum]

They raised a couple of hundred million dollars or so and have been going around trying to sign as many restaurants hairdresser etc... As they can the beauty of what they do is they offer local time dependant deals ... Ie daily deals for a restaurant in your town but it will be gone today then tomorrow is another one ...


They have been attempting to grow the user base and get deals and that was what they raised the money for .

This fits perfectly with google places search for restaurant in Birmingham it comes up with the daily deals of the restaurants in Birmingham .... Brilliant on the part of google really it is worth far more to them than they paid .

They also have all the advertisers alkyd through google adwords and so can cut groupons costs by integrating with google adwords so if u want to run a deal you can put into adwords and it goes straight into groupon can't believe bing let them do it .

 

[Sussexite]

I got so many poorly geo targeted ads from them that I blocked them on adsense.....:grin:

...looks like I'd better unblock them now or risk upsetting the big G

 

[Ashton]

Smart purchase for google, increases profits + traffic and puts them even further in the lead for 'group buying' deals. However I am still on the fence as to whether this is a 'fad' or not.

Sucks for Groupola either way

 

[namealot]

Don't think google has actually signed a deal with them yet... They were trying to nail out a deal with yahoo in the summer but it fell through... they had a decent investment from Digital Sky Technologies (Russian billionaire also has face book and others it can push it through) and Accel Partners and New Enterprise Associates (They have made some pretty profitable investments ….) Bit of a trend with these sort of tie in geo, voucher (nothing like the UK voucher sites...? these offer high discounts and take around 50 %) USA mainly. There nearest rival is probably another newish clone LivingSocial... Google is trying to diversify offer more online services, adverting avenues etc tommrow the world.....

 

[disruptive]

I got so many poorly geo targeted ads from them that I blocked them on adsense.....:grin:

...looks like I'd better unblock them now or risk upsetting the big G

Same for me, I'm yet to block, but I probably will. I cant help feeling poor tagetting will just affect me, while G rakes in huge margins as the poacher has become gamekeeper too.