OpenTable

OpenTable dumps the daily deal

On Monday, the company that made the ‘daily deal‘ famous went public. Groupon’s debut as a publicly-traded company was successful, despite the widespread criticism the company had received in the months leading up to its IPO.

Going public, of course, doesn’t mean that Groupon has answered the serious questions about its business model and future prospects. And if moves by another player that entered the daily deals space is any indication, the company that turned daily deals into a billion-dollar market may have its work cut out for it.

Is Google’s Zagat acquisition its most problematic ever?

Yesterday, Google announced that it is acquiring Zagat, a company whose name has become synonymous with printed restaurant guides. By size, the acquisition is likely nowhere near Google’s largest.

As observed by TechCrunch, it appears that the acquisition price was under $66m.

But Google’s Zagat acquisition has created quite a lot of buzz, and for good reason: this could arguably be Google’s most problematic and challenging acquisition ever.

LinkedIn: happy days are here again!

For those who lived through the .com boom and bust of the late 1990s,
the last decade has been interesting. The internet is now bigger, and
stronger. Today’s success stories, including Facebook, Groupon and
Zynga, have taken center stage, and look set to cash in.

Yesterday, LinkedIn, the popular social network for professionals went public. And boy did investors party like it was 1999.