Viewing profile — rockya

yes, an actual distribution would be the most useful, but Groupon hasn't provided that data.

For sold to each customer, I believe the median is a better measure. See http://blog.agrawals.org/2011/08/11/groupon-s-1-full-of-hole...

Groupon specifically says in their S-1 that they do nothing to stop such cheating. Given that they are being valued based on subscribers and revenue, it's in their interests not to…

renting out your house for money gives the insurance company an out because your homeowners policy is for personal use. see http://blog.agrawals.org/2011/08/01/answers-on-insurance…

they aren't using an insurance company, they are paying for it out of pocket.

i emailed with brian and they are paying all of these out of pocket, even going forward. no insurance company involved. now that opens up a whole other can of worms...

From a payments expert: "I have never seen anything get so close to full on fraud in the open."

I noticed that too. That comment was pulled right as I (author of original post) entered the thread. I repeat... I have nothing personal against Sam. Never met the guy.

Those are compilations of actual deals offered by the merchant, not stuff that was made up by others deciding what sort of discount a merchant might offer.

a) Coupon/discount verbiage is typically done with the consent of the business. b) Please try doing this with Bose and Apple. Let me know how it works out.

That negotiation happens in private and some businesses might be willing to entertain that. The fact that this happens in the open has significant potential to devalue the brand. U…

Associating discounts with businesses who haven't agreed to them is problematic for me. Many manufacturers have MAP guidelines so that they don't get to be perceived as bargain bas…

This whole model is going to collapse for a lot of reasons. I wrote about that here: http://redesignmobile.com/2011/06/22/loopts-u-deals-offer-an...

I'm well aware of the Priceline model. I've booked hundreds of room nights using Priceline -- in fact, I'm staying at a hotel I Pricelined right now. The difference between Priceli…

Publishing results in: - Loopt getting subscribers to its list. That seems like a benefit to me. - Merchant getting perceived as a discount brand. For many merchants, that's a nega…

I always separate the person from the model. My criticism is of the model and the actions. The headline was to make a point as to how absurd what Loopt did is. I have never met you…

Merely publishing these deals enriches Loopt at the expense of the business -- even if none of them take it. Loopt is building a mailing list of people using the business's brand n…

Sam- There's no way this should be an opt out. Loopt is trading on the business's good name and offering a "deal" that doesn't exist. It's inconveniencing the business and potentia…

Author here: That definitely would've saved me some time! But doing it this way also gave me insight into how quickly/much Google was indexing. I didn't do a full test on bing, but…