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What will Google offer?

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Re: What will Google offer?

#41

Post by [deleted] »

jonknee wrote: post #28
killedbydeath wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail as a product was innovative in many ways (large storage, convenient search). It was much better than competitors, I switched immediately. Not sure if the same can be said about Google Offers.

Have you used Google Offers yet? With the big map they have as the background of the teaser it seems like it could be quite different from Groupon. They have mapping software built into a couple hundred million smartphones... Could be a nice differentiating factor. Not to mention an established relationship with millions of businesses through AdWords.

[deleted]

Re: What will Google offer?

#42

Post by jshen »

spontaneus wrote: post #29

It's fine that Google is late in to group buying, but the problem is they aren't going to be able to do it any better than Groupon or Living Social so people aren't going to care. As other said, Google killed it with Gmail and it was far better than any other mail service, but how much better can they make 50% off coupons?

They don't have to be better if it comes installed on new android phones.

Re: What will Google offer?

#43

Post by ry0ohki »

All the people saying this will "kill" Groupon in some way are missing the fact that couponing is very far from a zero sum game. Customers are not brand loyal to coupon sites, as it's essentially free money, if Google Offers took off, then people would use BOTH Groupon and Google Offers. The only thing all these couponing sites will kill is the margins that restaurants have.

(Also, did anyone else think the subject meant what would Google offer salary-wise to not leave for Facebook? ;))

Re: What will Google offer?

#44

Post by paganel »

jonknee wrote: post #28
killedbydeath wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail as a product was innovative in many ways (large storage, convenient search). It was much better than competitors, I switched immediately. Not sure if the same can be said about Google Offers.

Have you used Google Offers yet? With the big map they have as the background of the teaser it seems like it could be quite different from Groupon. They have mapping software built into a couple hundred million smartphones... Could be a nice differentiating factor. Not to mention an established relationship with millions of businesses through AdWords.

> Not to mention an established relationship with millions of businesses through AdWords.

I still think you need to have people on the ground. And lots of them. As a small aside, I work for a Groupon-clone website in a non-US market. I've built a very nice Internet-based redemption interface for the business owners to check the clients' coupons. Guess what? ~75% of them don't even have Internet at the POS, they print their coupon lists at a home computer and somehow manage all the clients we send them manually. We also manually create accounts for about half of them, because, apparently, creating an user account on our Drupal-based website is too damn difficult.

Maybe this time is different, and all the tech-savy small-business owners from out-there will go directly into Google's arms. I personally doubt it.

Re: What will Google offer?

#45

Post by fedd »

rednum wrote: post #7

The back button in my browser is broken on this site. I know it doesn't matter for the product itself, but it's one of these little annoying things that leave me with slightly negative - instead of totally neutral - impression.

the russian letters are broken and show as questions. this is 2011, why encoding errors!

Re: What will Google offer?

#46

Post by spontaneus »

jshen wrote: post #42
spontaneus wrote: post #29

It's fine that Google is late in to group buying, but the problem is they aren't going to be able to do it any better than Groupon or Living Social so people aren't going to care. As other said, Google killed it with Gmail and it was far better than any other mail service, but how much better can they make 50% off coupons?

They don't have to be better if it comes installed on new android phones.

Wasn't buzz going to kill twitter too because you don't have to leave your inbox?

Re: What will Google offer?

#47

Post by zaidf »

thecoffman wrote: post #16

Since the failure of Wave, does it seem to anyone else the Google has been copying rather than innovating nowadays? Buzz was a copy of Twitter, this is a copy of Groupon, +1 is a copy of Facebook's like button etc... I'd like to see more innovation and less parroting coming out of them. I don't want my search results to be social - I want them to be relevant and spam free. If they really feel like going "social" is t…

why not stick with what you excel at?

Because most companies don't believe that trying to expand into another area will significantly hurt them in areas they already excel at.

Re: What will Google offer?

#48

Post by Qz »

rednum wrote: post #7

The back button in my browser is broken on this site. I know it doesn't matter for the product itself, but it's one of these little annoying things that leave me with slightly negative - instead of totally neutral - impression.

It still works if you click it twice in a row fast enough. But yes, it's annoying.
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