Groupon Tryout

Groupon caught my attention when the company declined a 6 billion dollar buyout from Google. The Groupon idea is somewhat simple: they offer special products or services to their users via email. These offers only kick in when a certain number of folks accept the offer, and the offer last only for a short time (like a day). The offers are usually quite local, comparable to coupons in a news paper, but social network enabled. Apparently there are a lot of similar services already available, but Groupon seems the biggest, followed by LivingSocial. So Groupon seems to be on the right track - but it appears that Facebook is taking that business area under consideration... beware, Groupon. Today I took the deal for the first time - although it was cheating: the offer from Solana Beach Coffee Company was an $8 discount on a $15 voucher, but paid with a $10 credit by Groupon for the first deal. So I actually forfeit $3, and still have to pay tax on the actual purchase later. Later today I will probably get an email with the actual voucher. And of course, I got a "refer us to others" link... Use it, so that I can get another free coffee :-) I'll post later if it worked out as advertised.