Could it be Google was as surprised as everyone else about Groupon's revenues? During the rumors about Google's offer of $2 billion and then later $5 or $6 billion everyone was reporting Groupon at $500 million per year. After the deal was rejected people are reporting $2 _billion_ per year instead.
As far as innovation from their acquisitions, Google still has Dodgeball. Even without Dennis Crowley they must own something right? Couldn't Google put a few people to work reviving that project and have a social location app, probably tied into their existing Latitude/Maps infrastructure, to get into the check-in game? It seems like it could be possible to get value out of "failed" acquisitions, some of which were just a few years ahead of their time.
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Could it be Google was as surprised as everyone else about Groupon's revenues? During the rumors about Google's offer of $2 billion and then later $5 or $6 billion everyone was reporting Groupon at $500 million per year. After the deal was rejected people are reporting $2 _billion_ per year instead.
As far as innovation from their acquisitions, Google still has Dodgeball. Even without Dennis Crowley they must own something right? Couldn't Google put a few people to work reviving that project and have a social location app, probably tied into their existing Latitude/Maps infrastructure, to get into the check-in game? It seems like it could be possible to get value out of "failed" acquisitions, some of which were just a few years ahead of their time.
top line revenue vs. bottom line income (i.e. minus expenses, which include payouts to the merchants...)
I'd rather generally own a business making $5b/yr in profit on $10b/yr in revenue, vs. $0b/yr in profit on $30b/yr in revenue.