You can find Aerons online (ebay, craigslist) for a fraction of retail. I am currently sitting in a full-featured Aeron that I got for $400. I bought it 6 months ago and have no complaints so far.
I agree with all your points and would like to hire you to code up my idea for mashing up internet memes and home improvement supplies. I have already purchased the domain name: lolcatphotosharinghomedepot.com. Although I have made this much progress already, I am prepared to offer you 5% equity in this endeavour. The combination of my prestigious Harvard MBA and my 1 year of consulting experience at prestigious Bain, Co. will assure our success. Please let me know when we can begin. Your first step will be to deploy an Oracle/Microsoft cloud server in the cumulonimbus formation off the coast of East Africa to handle the user traffic that I am sure will arrive shortly.
no i just made this yesterday, it only takes snapshots of current deals. If you want to collect revenues going forward I would set up some kind of cron job and run it every night at a reasonable time (11pm Eastern US time would probably work, but you'd underestimate on the West Coast deals)
Ha yeah the code is a mess. I have used BeautifulSoup before but I don't understand how it works well enough and just wanted to get something out the door
Wow. Google revolutionized the way we entertain ourselves, learn information, and interact with each other. Groupon has revolutionized paying $5 less for a pedicure on Sundays before 1pm.
Google monetizes very little of what they revolutionize. As far as money goes, Google revolutionized how we find small businesses. That's pretty much it. The entertainment, education, and interaction portions are all loss leaders so that the answer to "How do you find small businesses?" is "I go to Google."
Groupon does the exact same thing, answer "How do you find small businesses?" The difference is that they compete on price instead of relevancy. Google's value proposition is that they will show you the most relevant ads to your query, so that you don't need to wade through lots of useless shops to get the one you want. Groupon's value proposition is price: the merchants they show you will give you lower prices than the ones you'd find elsewhere.
It remains to be seen whether this is a sustainable value proposition. I can think of two Web 1.0 companies that Groupon reminds me of: Amazon.com and Kozmo.com. But while Amazon became a huge retailing powerhouse, Kozmo deadpooled, hard. The difference was that Amazon's value proposition was convenience and selection, and they used the Internet to deliver both through some pretty impressive logistics management. Kozmo's value proposition was convenience and price, and they used lots of venture capital money to deliver both through selling at a loss. Groupon's business seems to remind me a bit more of Kozmo's though: they compete on price through using direct subsidies.
Groupon is revolutionizing the way we explore our local communities, discover hidden treasures, meet like-minded people, go on adventures we wouldn't have otherwise.
Google has revolutionized finding celebrity sex tapes and forwarding people to Wikipedia 2 billion times a day.
