Once Again, Big Companies Often Fail When Jumping Into A Space With A Smaller Competitor
from the deals-deals-deals dept
The success (or, at least, the tremendous usage) of Groupon has driven a ton of competition into the market. Though, as we've noted in the past, many of the upstart competitors seem to be cargo cult copyists -- copying the superficial idea, without really understanding what makes Groupon so dominant in the space. The latest competitor who thought it was easy to copy and discovered otherwise appears to be Facebook, who is shutting down its daily deals business after just four short months.Of course, back when it launched, many people wondered if Facebook would be a "Groupon killer," given its larger user base. This is yet another reminder that, contrary to what some people will claim, it's often not that easy for big players to just come in and copy an idea and take over the market. It happens sometimes, certainly, but it's a lot rarer than you think. It's why I'm always amused at people who worry that some big company is just going to "copy" their idea and wipe them out. If a company really understands an idea and a market deeply, it will quickly discover that a superficial copycat won't have much momentum... which appears to be exactly what happened with Facebook's deals offering. Big companies don't always win. In fact, it's a lot less common than some people will insist.
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Filed Under: big companies, copying
Companies: facebook, groupon
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Or maybe they realized it was a worthless business
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Facebook == the new Myspace. It's for attention whores. Period. The non-attention whores mostly all have inactive account and are either thinking of closing their accounts or already have. Sorry fanboys, the truth hurts. The world worked fine without it and will move on fine once it self-destructs. I just hope all these fails will precipitate things.
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You forgot "You damn kids, get off my lawn." And it helps to shake your cane at them too.
Sorry dude. The world moves on and curmudgeons like you slip away. If Facebook collapses, there will be someone else jumping in to take over just like Facebook took over for MySpace.
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Why sue when it is good advertising
or such other examples
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Re: Why sue when it is good advertising
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/brendancoffey/2011/06/02/think-groupon-makes-money-think-again /
If the biggest dog in the yard ain't making it, the rest of you are wasting you time.
Further, I think that Facebook realizes that this sort of thing dilutes their brand. A bad deal through their service could end up costing them not only a coupon buyer, but also the social actions of that user.
Don't be shocked if they let another company come in to do the same sort of thing, without Facebook's true involvement or risk in it.
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They left the market
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Is this your opinion or is this based on any studies?
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Reality?
Ain't competition grand?
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The work competitor in the headline is spelled incorrectly. ;-)
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Instagram
Instagram was all in a tizzy last night with lots of #IGaintFB posts. Apparently, for a good part of the summer, FB was trying to purchase Instagram. When that didn't happen, they just decided to copy it.
...and I'm not the least bit worried. See, Foursquare, Twitter and Groupon are all still around. This will be gone after a few months.
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So don't worry about giant corporations, eh?
Once again, Mike plants a poison pill: "big doesn't always win, ignore the big guys, they're incompetent".
The only trust Mike will bust is yours if you follow his pro-corporate line.
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Those articles are more a warning to companies to figure out a marketing strategy WELL BEFORE you sign up for a popular service like Groupon.
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When innovators worry about some big company just copying their idea, it's been my experience that it's because they really don't understand in depth why their idea works.
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They don't always win
It makes me appreciate new and interesting ideas all the more. I think it takes a lot of guts to be an entrepreneur (I sure hope I spelled that right...)
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Re: They don't always win
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The concept you describe is true in more or less every aspect of public-facing business.
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Daily Deal Aggregator
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