After Marissa Mayer, One of Google's first 20 employee's and most recently the head of Google Search, was put in charge of location and local services, it was widely believed that Google was going to be making a move into the location-based social networking space (think Foursquare or Facebook Places - click for me info). The question everyone asked -Why move one of the most powerful players at Google to head up an emerging, small, and recently reorganized area of the tech giant? After news came out in the last few weeks ago that Google offered CEO Andrew Mason close to $6 Billion to acquire Groupon, the Mayer move seemed to make more sense. "A $5+ billion purchase - even for Google - is not something to be taken lightly, and it would make perfect sense to put Mayer - who is still only 35 years old - in charge of what many believe to be the next big thing." With 700 million global monthly unique users, Google can achieve a wider distribution of the 40,000 merchants that Groupon has lined up that are waiting to get thier deals listed. Will Groupon accept what would be the third richest acquisition in history? For now, the world will have to wait and see.
UPDATE:
Late last week, Groupon rejected Google takeover bid, and Bloomberg is claiming they know why. The social deal leader is betting it can keep increasing its valuation after walking away from a deep-pocketed suitor. As the story of Yahoo demonstrates, it's a strategy fraught with risk, but - as Facebook shows -great potential, too.
Thoughts and resources:
- Did Google put Marissa Mayer in charge of local because of Groupon? http://bit.ly/eJf1Af
- Try Groupon yourself: http://www.groupon.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment