Founded in 1999, the Salt Lake City company offers a wide variety of merchandise, ranging from bedding and home decor to appliances and sporting goods–at discounted prices.

But with a little bit of marketing polish, the practice has become a new, chic burgeoning industry.

A discount center conjures up imagines of large warehouses with cement floors full of unsold items. A flash sales deal, however, leads you believe you’ve found a pair of designer jeans for half off after sifting through dozens of boutiques on Rodeo Drive.

With that in mind, a micro industry of flash sales sites has been born.

The Gilt Groupe, HauteLook, One Kings Lane, Rue La La and Jackthreads all have their own niche, focusing on curating clothing for women or men, or furniture and home decor.

One big question is, is there enough inventory to sustain it all?

“It’s the dirty little secret in manufacturing,” said Overstock’s CEO Patrick Byrne. “The answer is that there is far more than you can possibly think. A company will say they don’t have overstock, but if you talk to the CFO, they will ask, ‘what can you truck away?’ The world is filled with excess inventory and is looking for channels to get rid of it.”

But just because the inventory is there, Byrne doesn’t believe they can all survive.

“We think the world only needs one pipeline, and we’ve built the one pipeline to do that,” he said. “The suppliers are better off with one big pipeline. If one pipeline emerges, where all the liquidation gets done, there will be price integrity in the rest of their marketplace. It’s our aspiration to be that one thick pipeline.”

On average, he said Overstock’s inventory is about 60 percent off the manufacturer’s recommended price. He said, general retail stores sell items for an average of 15 percent off and Walmart is even more heavily discounted at 30 to 40 percent off. Sites like Amazon.com, are normally somewhere in between, and flash sales generally claim discounts of 50 to 70 percent.

About a year ago, Overstock jumped on the bandwagon to launch Eziba.com, which focuses on selling a small number of items, ranging from furniture to jewelry, at heavily discounted prices via a daily email.

Eziba has the boutique look, with large photos of the products and colors bleeding off the page. That’s in sharp contrast to Overstock’s more straight-forward layout that stresses searching and browsing for items that are displayed in small thumbnail pictures.

Byrne said one of the big differences between items sold on Eziba and those sold on Overstock is the amount of inventory in stock.

Items on Eziba may have up to 5,000 on the virtual shelves, whereas products sold on Overstock have only a couple of hundred left.  Another difference is that there’s only a dozen or so items for sale on Eziba at any given time, while Overstock’s inventory spans 300,000 items (not including books and movies).

One of the big differences between Eziba and the competition is that it’s able to leverage Overstock’s infrastructure.

For instance, Eziba customers get the same customer service as Overstock and have the same flat-rate shipping of $2.99 an order.

So far, Byrne says the introduction of other sites has not affected the company’s business.

“It’s like swimming around in Lake Michigan and asking did you bump into each other. The world is so much bigger than anyone gets. It’s so enormous,” he said.

Overstock has been steadily growing over the years.

In 1999, the company recorded revenues of $1.8 million, and last year, revenues totaled $1.1 billion. Still, it’s a microcosm of the super-large e-commerce world. The company’s stock is trading at $14.31 a share for a market cap of $333.4 million. In contrast, Amazon’s is valued at around $75 billion, and eBay is worth $40 billion.

Generally, Byrne categorizes the company as a nice profitable company that has built a very solid foundation over the past few years.

He said the recent stability, compared to the start-up years, gives him the chance to experiment with new lines of business. ”We are very agile. We can develop new things really quickly and snap them into the platform we’ve built.”

In addition to Eziba, the company also runs Worldstock, a site that helps artisans from around the world sell their crafts online. Byrne made the recent decision to give all of its profits to a charity that’s focused on helping build classrooms in developing countries around the world.

It’s also recently launched Main Street Revolution, which helps small business around the U.S. sell their goods online, ranging from children’s clothing to specialty home-made cookies.

The company’s latest endeavor includes experimenting with a significant rebranding of the Web site.

In January, it introduced the domain name O.CO, which is a shortcut to its regular Web site. During an initial introductory period, customers who shop at O.CO will receive free shipping.

Byrne said the reason behind the name is to have a more recognizable brand across the 90 countries it operates in. While the domain name will change permanently internationally, the company is only experimenting with the name domestically.

Pixelmator co-founder Aidas Dailide told me the company sold about 33,000 copies of the software at $29.99–a limited-time discount from its standard $59 price–to gross $1 million. And he said he had no problem paying Apple the 30 percent cut of sales it demands of App Store vendors, something critics have labeled “the Apple Toll.”

“The 30 percent cut is definitely worth it,” he said. “The increase in sales and exposure is worth much more than that. Especially in our case.” And just how much of a sales increase from the pre-App Store days did Pixelmator experience? Dailide wouldn’t say, though he did remark that “the jump in sales was dramatic.”

Which is a point worth noting, because earlier this month Pixelmator made the Mac App Store its exclusive sales channel.

According to Mashable, Google is close to launching “Google Offers,” a service that will compete with Groupon, LivingSocial and their hundreds of clones.

In a fact sheet sent to Mashable, it says users will receive a daily email offering a local deal, and as with other sites, the discount will be activated once enough people have made the purchase. The deal will be promoted throughout Google’s ad networks.

Google confirmed the service at a very high level: “Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program. This initiative is part of an ongoing effort at Google to make new products, such as the recent Offer Ads beta, that connect businesses with customers in new ways.”

To be sure, early providers have proven that the business can scale.

For instance, just yesterday LivingSocial sold 1.3 million $20 Amazon gift cards for $10 each to ring up a one-day sales total of $13 million. Groupon’s run rate is close to $2 billion, although about half of that is passed on to merchants.

It’s not surprising that Google is kicking off the service without acquiring a company in the space. Groupon would rather seek an IPO than sell, and LivingSocial has already teamed up with Amazon–and after those two, it’s slim pickings.

Google’s challenge won’t be in attracting a large audience but in executing the business.

Traditionally, Google has focused on a self-service advertising model, where merchants can go online to buy an ad without having to interact with a salesperson. But Groupon and LivingSocial have approached the business differently and have put hundreds of feet on the street. Groupon has roughly 3,000 employees, while LivingSocial has about 600–and both are growing extremely fast.

Google could try the approach it knows best, by automating the process and putting at least some of it online. After all, one of the reasons it was reportedly willing to pay so much for Groupon was for its local sales force.

So far, Google’s local track record has been spotty. Getting mom-and-pops interested in buying keywords online has been notoriously hard, as they have continued to prefer working with other mediums like newspapers and yellow pages (which do have local sales forces).

But if it is successful at automating any part of the process, Google could take a smaller cut of the deal than others do today, which could push down margins for everyone.

Photo Credit: Mashable.

Sites like Gilt are supposedly exclusive discount fashion communities, but the reality is they will take anyone who will pay. Groupon, which just got Google to say it was worth as much as $6 billion and is on the verge of an investor valuation of $4.75 billion, is a glorified email list. Sure, users must swarm a deal to activate it, but that always happens. And users can share deals with their friends on Facebook and Twitter, earning referral rewards if they buy a deal.

Hitwise researcher Bill Tancer told me via email that only 8.3 percent of Groupon traffic comes from social media referrals. That’s compared to 24 percent of Groupon traffic coming from shopping and classifieds Web pages (as in, ads) and 13 percent from email sites.

Upstream traffic from social networks as a portion of total Groupon traffic declined 83 percent from Nov. 9 to Nov. 10. Tancer said the move from social networks to email reflects the shift of Groupon visitors from early adopters to mainstream users.

The thing is, as seen particularly in the gaming business, social may have the capacity to be an incredible multiplier for any industry. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said more than once that he thinks e-commerce will be one of the next big sectors to be disrupted by companies that are built to be social from the ground up.

Linking social with commerce is tricky. Besides user reviews and accounts, which have been around forever, much of social commerce is very basic.

For example, Amazon recently launched the most minimal of minimal Facebook integrations, recommending products based on opted-in users’ public “Likes” and giving gift suggestions for friends with upcoming birthdays. The Web retailer could have gone much deeper, by, for instance, automatically connecting Amazon users to their Facebook accounts or helping users tell friends about new items they have bought.

But that would have raised privacy hackles, as with previous Facebook initiatives, such as the discontinued Facebook Beacon effort or the current Instant Personalization program.

Some retailers are trying to sell things directly on Facebook, such as Delta Air Lines tickets and JCPenney apparel. I see the point of trying to capture users on the sites where they spend all their time, but it seems a little awkward.

Not to say Facebook isn’t already developing a burgeoning business in virtual e-commerce through its gaming partners that could eventually extend to real-world goods (although the margins would be much worse).

And, yes, there are all sorts of real-world deals you can access by playing the “mayor game” on a local social service like Foursquare.

Also on the start-up front, the collage community Polyvore arranges deals and creates tools to help its two million users influence fashion designers, and indie retailer Moxsie asks its Twitter followers to help it choose what items to sell.

There are also start-ups, like Payvment and Milyoni, that provide tools for Facebook storefronts. And the purchase-sharing platforms Blippy and Swipely are social commerce taken to the extreme.

While none of those are Groupon-scale businesses, there are many playing around with the potentially explosive combination of social and commerce.

One cool example of social commerce I just saw today was in a post by E.B. Boyd at Fast Company.

Tea Collection, a boutique children’s clothing maker, used the Facebook Like button to decide which of its selection of discontinued girls’ dresses to deeply discount. When a $59 dress was chosen by user Likes, it was discounted to $10. It quickly sold out at a loss, but additional purchases by customers brought in by the sale gave the company one of its biggest overall sales days ever.

Now as head of HP Networking, he has a job that is no less daunting: Wrestling with none other than Cisco Systems, the powerful grandaddy of the networking business. HP’s networking unit, recently bolstered by its $2.7 billion acquisition of 3Com last year, caught some attention this week with an audacious promotion offering networking customers a 20 percent discount on certain products if they trade in old Cisco gear.

To be fair, HP has yet to take much business away from Cisco. As The Wall Street Journal noted, Cisco has so far held on to its 70 percent share of the enterprise Ethernet switching market in Q3, up from 67 percent a year ago, according to the research firm Infonetics. HP’s share was 11 percent, the same share that 3Com had before it was part of HP.

Still, it’s an interesting time to be trading barbs with Cisco, in part because it appears vulnerable given its uncertain market outlook when it reported earnings last month, but also because it’s eyeing some of HP’s home turf for expansion.

I met up with Haas at HP Headquarters in Palo Alto recently to talk about how the matchup with Cisco is shaping up, and what to expect from HP in 2011.

NewEnterprise: Marius, let’s start with the big question about the coming year. You were deeply involved with the EDS deal and several HP deals before that. Is there still an appetite for big deals in IT or at HP?

Marius Haas: “It’s not going to stop. The big are going to get bigger. The appetite for some of the niche technology players to get some funding so they can grow to a sufficient scale is not gone. Now it’s becoming clear that Cisco, Oracle, IBM and HP are all pretty much starting to build out their end-to-end stacks and I don’t see any stop to the deal-making. In order to get the kind of muscle you need to compete in this market you have to be pretty big and you have to be global.”

NE: So HP is not done doing deals?

MH: “No.”

NE: What kind of deals might we see?

MH: “I’ll give you a hint. Look at who our new CEO and Chairman [former SAP CEO Léo Apotheker] is. You can probably draw a conclusion that maybe we’ll continue to expand in the software arena, and then move up the stack. That’s a logical path he could be taking.

NE: Let’s talk about the competition, specifically Cisco–a networking company that’s going after the data center and IT. You run the networking division of an IT company. Talk to me about that dynamic.

MH: “We like the position we’re in. We have all the things you need in order to bring together and deliver a sort of holistic kind of cloud strategy for customers. It takes a lot of IP and we’re the only company on the planet that has it all. Servers, storage, networking, management software, services. And all the devices as well. No one else has that. And Cisco doesn’t have it. They will come from their position of strength which is networking, but they are going to have to partner to deliver the broader ecosystem. It’s easy to put on paper, but harder to deliver.

“They’re used to their network model with proprietary products. Customers are saying they don’t want proprietary stuff. They want something that’s standards-based, interoperable and at a much lower cost. Our offering is resonating. We don’t see the kind of slowness they are seeing. And the enterprise customers are telling us they no longer want a single-vendor-dominated networking market. They want competition for their business.”

NE: So where are you seeing demand?

MH: “Historically HP before we acquired 3Com was strong in the mid-market and in the edge of the enterprise. We were strong in the K-12, local government, hospitality and health care segments. Now we’re seeing broader momentum in the enterprise, especially from companies who are modernizing their environment and getting ready for the cloud. People are getting tired of paying a premium for Cisco. And you’ve got about $9 billion worth of gear from Cisco that is going end of life soon. Out of our top 1,000 enterprise accounts, 458 are doing proof of concept trials with us. People are now convinced we are that second horse in the race.”

The Samsung Focus, HTC Surround and LG Quantum are all priced at a penny with a new activation, while T-Mobile’s HTC HD7 is listed on Amazon for $139.

Other retailers are also offering discounts, though not as steep. I’ve seen models at Costco and Target for half their suggested $199 price, while Best Buy’s Web site lists both the HD7 and HTC Surround for $99. Retailer LetsTalk.com has two models for $49 each and another for $99, after rebates. AT&T and T-Mobile are also offering nationwide promotions allowing those paying full price to buy one and get a second one free.

In fairness, this is the holiday season and lots of phones are seeing discounts. Best Buy is running promotions that offer lots of different smartphones for free–not just those running an operating system from Redmond. And Amazon has lots of other cheap phones, including Android models as low as a penny and had previously put a bunch of AT&T phones–including some Windows Phones–on sale for a penny (though that was only for a weekend).

Still, such sharp cuts probably aren’t an encouraging sign for phones that have been on the market barely a month. Phones–at least those other than the iPhone–typically get discounted at some point. However, hit devices tend to maintain their initial price longer, while those that are less successful tend to get a price chop sooner.

For its part, Microsoft has said it is happy with Windows Phone 7 sales, as has AT&T, though neither has shared any actual numbers on device sales.

“We’re very happy with the rate of sales given the fact we’ve taken such a significant reset from Windows Mobile to a brand-new Windows Phone,” Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore told Mobilized in a interview following his onstage appearance at this week’s D: Dive Into Mobile. “We need people to get reacquainted with what we’re offering.”

And, of course, all these discounts may well boost total sales volumes.

A Microsoft representative declined to comment on the various price drops.

Lee Brown, who heads up Yahoo’s advertising efforts in its key New York region, is taking a post at Groupon as an SVP, focused on national accounts such as Gap and others that the start-up has recently begun targeting.

Groupon, which has been around only since 2008, has built a giant business in a short time by linking customers with mostly local merchants via daily discounted deals.

According to sources, it has a $2 billion revenue run rate this year, more than half of which will be returned to retailers.

Groupon’s growth has attracted a lot of attention of late, including a $6 billion acquisition bid by Google.

Those deal talks ended, although Google execs have said this week that local sales are a critical part of its future.

Yahoo has lost a lot of sales talent over the last year, including most recently Keith Nilsson, who ran global sales initiatives.

Interestingly, a former top Yahoo commerce exec, Rob Solomon, is Groupon’s president.

According to sources close to the situation, Groupon’s actual run rate for this year is clocking in at $2 billion in revenue, rather than the widely quoted $500 million.

Who knew hawking spas treatments and stripper pole lessons could be so lucrative?

About 50 percent ofhat revenue is paid out to the myriad of local merchants–called a pass-through–that the social buying phenom does discount deals with, those kind of numbers give some insight into why Google has been willing to entertain paying up to $6 billion to acquire Groupon.

The pair have been in discussions about an acquisition by the search giant, which was first reported here.

Over the last several weeks, a much lower $500 million to $600 million annual revenue figure has been used for Groupon–including here.

Apparently, that’s only in one quarter of the year.

The Chicago-based start-up is privately held and does not have to release its financial information.

As in all acquisition talks, there is a chance they will not result in a purchase. Google and reviews site Yelp, for example, held serious discussions that resulted in no purchase by the search giant.

[UPDATE: The Google-Groupon talks are over, as Chicago-based start-up decided to go it alone.]

One thing not true: A split between CEO Andrew Mason and his two original partners–Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky over the possible sale.

That tension has been rumored by some, with Mason more interested in keeping Groupon independent and focused on an IPO and the others wanting to sell.

Sources said the trio are not at odds over the future of Groupon.

Even as Groupon is poised to sell itself to Google for badillions of dollars, the attack of the social buying clones continues.

Today, it is the launch of FamilyFinds, a Santa Monica, Calif., start-up aimed at offering daily deals to families, with $5.75 million in funding to help it get going.

“Think relevance, plus an explosive market plus a great team,” said FamilyFinds CEO Matt Coffin, in an interview yesterday about the new site, whose first “holi-deal” today is “$10 Only-in-LA Santa Photos.”

Others to come include kid-focused live shows, skate rentals and holiday cruises that Coffin said are “hyper-local and demographically targeted.”

Coffin said, as a longtime entrepreneur, he was intrigued with the booming social e-commerce space. But, as a parent, he was less impressed, because of little in the way of personalization.

“I was somewhat disenchanted by the same offers that did not target me accurately,” he said.

(So is BoomTown, who is going to scream if I get another spa treatment or stripper pole lesson offer this week. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

Thus, Coffin said FamilyFinds drills down on one audience–those who need to entertain and serve the little ones.

The former founder of LowerMyBills co-founded FamilyFinds with, among others, a blast from the Web 1.0 past: Former Disney Internet Group head Jake Winebaum.

At launch, FamilyFinds said it will focus on numerous communities across Los Angeles, although a national rollout is coming in 2011.

Split Rock Partners provided the Series A funding.

Here’s the official FamilyFinds press release:

FAMILYFINDS.COM ENTERS $1B LOCAL SOCIAL ECOMMERCE SPACE

Backed by $5.75 Million Investment, Leading Internet Veterans
Launch Vertical Family Daily Deal Site

(Santa Monica, CA) December 1, 2010–FamilyFinds, an online daily promotions site exclusively focused on services and experiences for families, officially launched today. This community-suggested and expert-curated destination advances the online daily deal space by combining a family focus with hyper-local geo targeting. The company also announced that it recently closed on a $5.75M Series A funding round backed by Split Rock Partners, strongly positioning them to be involved in of one of the fastest growing industries of all time.

FamilyFinds is led by Internet industry veterans who founded and ran several successful consumer businesses valued at over $1 billion, including the founder of FamilyFun magazine, who also ran the Disney Internet Group, and the founder of LowerMyBills. The team, all of them now parents, have created an online destination that will not only offer member families great deals on new and favorite neighborhood merchants, but will also provide information and resources to help them discover the best family activities in their own and nearby communities.

According to a recent study of moms*, over 70% use the Internet to find deals and discounts (the most popular activity) and 62% go online for entertainment and family activities. FamilyFinds addresses this trend by directly creating a single destination for moms and dads seeking deals and family activity ideas.

“Families, local and national brands, and member-based deals is a great combination for a big vertically focused business, and one that we believe is untapped,” said Matt Coffin, chief executive officer, FamilyFinds.com. “As parents and consumers ourselves, we know the key to unlocking this market is relevance, which means being local, curating deals and fun discoveries that create family memories, and delivering great value-based pricing.”

Through consumer testing and an early beta, FamilyFinds learned that consumer demand, especially for busy families, while value influenced, is also heavily influenced by proximity to the merchant. The company will follow a hyper-local model, offering great finds not just within specific cities around the United States, but within specific neighborhoods. For launch, prior to the nationwide roll-out in 2011, FamilyFinds will serve numerous communities across Los Angeles, including neighborhoods in the Valley, Pasadena, South Bay, City Central, and the Westside.

“We know that moms and families are social and use the Internet not just to find great opportunities for themselves, but also to share and coordinate these opportunities and their experiences with other families, friends and neighbors,: said Brian Barnum, president. “FamilyFinds is building a social layer over everything we do to infuse our core value proposition with insight and access to the larger community of families in our customers’ extended networks.”

FamilyFinds is the collaborative effort of Internet industry veterans and parents, including:

• CEO Matt Coffin, founder of LowerMyBills.com (sold to Experian) and active Internet investor including Demand Media, Buscape (sold), Rubicon Project, Mahalo, Machinima and social eCommerce companies Hautelook, ShoeDazzle and ecoMom.

• Jake Winebaum, who was co-founder of eCompanies, which launched Business.com, Jamdat and Boingo, and founder of FamilyFun magazine and led Disney’s entry to the Internet as Chairman of the Disney Internet Group.

• Doug Hirsch, who was VP of Product at Facebook, GM Yahoo Entertainment and Founder of DailyStrength.org.

• President Brian Barnum who was the President of RHD Interactive (a division of R.H. Donnelly, now Dex One Corp.) and both COO and CFO of Business.com and CFO of Rent.com (sold to eBay).

• Leading content and merchandising is Elizabeth Hurchalla, previous editor of BlackboardEats and co-founding producer of Yahoo! Food.

• Leading editorial is Julie Taylor, previous editor-in-chief at Momlogic.

• Leading sales is Terry McGovern, previous Director of Interactive Sales at Los Angeles Times and sales at AT&T local

While there are many services around, I’ll just touch on a handful of them, including some that take advantage of social networking and group buying.

Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, is jumping into the wish-list action this holiday season with the Bing Shopping List. Starting Wednesday, this feature lets people add items to a saved wish list by simply check-marking an on-screen box in shopping search results. Shopping search results are displayed by clicking the Shopping tab in Bing search results or by selecting Shopping on Bing.com and going from there. Once an item’s box has been checked, a small, in-browser visual of all items added to the wish list is displayed in the lower left corner of the browser window. Lists are saved between sessions, so you can close your browser and open it another time and work with the same saved list.

In addition to collecting a list of wished-for items, the Bing Shopping List lets people share those lists with their Facebook friends, giving them a chance to see and buy items from someone else’s wish list. Or people can use Bing Shopping Lists to select just a couple items, share them with the Facebook community, and ask for friends’ opinions about which product is better. Users may get feedback from friends they wouldn’t otherwise know were experts in certain areas.

A Microsoft spokesman said the impetus for this came from trends the company saw taking place on the Web—specifically, people using Facebook to solicit opinions about what to buy and to tell others what they want.

A downside to the Bing Shopping Lists is that they don’t yet offer a way to share items with only certain people, which might mean sharing a private gift with all your Facebook friends. And you can’t yet create multiple lists. A way to share items with only certain people and options for create multiple lists are on the product road map for next year, according to a company spokesman.

Speaking of social networks, Sears is taking a unique approach to the group-buying concept with Wish Together, a program launched in mid-November. With Wish Together, Sears puts at least one new item on its Facebook page (facebook.com/sears) each day. If enough people click on the item’s “Like” button before a certain time, a steep discount on the item becomes unlocked, like a diamond necklace that originally cost $285 will cost $100 at its Wish Price if it gets the required 200 “likes.” People can see the number of necessary “Likes” and time remaining (down to the second) displayed on the item’s Wish Together Facebook page.Once a Wish Together deal is unlocked, it’s available to everyone—not just those who originally “liked” it. But those who “liked” the item get an email notification from Facebook as soon as the deal is unlocked so they can buy it while supplies last.

Bing is jumping into the wish-list action this holiday season with the Bing Shopping List

The tried and true Amazon Wish List, which has been around for 11 years, can be used to add wish-list items from any website, not just Amazon.com. This works using the site’s Universal Wish List. It can be set up by dragging an “Add to Wishlist” bookmark (http://3.ly/G82n) into your browser’s bookmark bar. Then you just click the bookmark whenever you’re on the specific Web page of an item you’d like to add to your Wish List. A small pop-up menu lets users designate a specific Amazon Wish List or add their own notes about an item. Universal Wish List browser extensions, or shortcuts built right into a Web browser, are available for Google’s Chrome, Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox browser. Some online retailers like ModCloth.com, save you a step by offering “Add To Amazon Wish List” buttons right on their websites. Amazon Wish Lists can be shared to friends through Facebook or Twitter using a link on the list’s webpage.

There are many Facebook apps for creating wish lists and sharing them with Facebook friends. I tried a couple apps, including a basic one called Fulfill My Wishlist (http://3.ly/3u3d). It let me search a shopping portal (that uses Google Shopping in the background) for items to add to my wish list, or let me copy and paste a link for any item to appear in my list. A notes section for each item allows room for describing details like preferred size or style. This list can be emailed to friends or viewed through the Facebook app by friends who use it.

If you’re planning to go in on buying a pricey gift with several other people, a group-gift option like eBay’s might be the right tool for you. EBay introduced its Group Gifts feature (groupgifts.ebay.com) in November. It lets several people pool their money to buy one item without one person chasing down those who owe money.

One person chooses an eBay item and selects the Buy It Now option (auction prices aren’t applicable when you need to tell the group how much they’ll definitely owe). The initiator tells the group how much he or she will pay and then shares the item with others via email, Facebook or Twitter, in hopes of getting contributions. A PayPal account is required for at least one person in the group to ultimately pay for the item, but gift contributors can chip in using credit or debit cards, and they can add their own notes to a gift.

Thanks to technology, there are many ways to direct your friends and family toward exactly what you want for the holidays, taking much of the guesswork out of giving and receiving this year.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101130/bing-shopping-list-review/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101129/if-google-buys-groupon-itll-be-a-windfall-for-investors-bankers-and-regulators/ http://allthingsd.com/20101129/if-google-buys-groupon-itll-be-a-windfall-for-investors-bankers-and-regulators/#comments Mon, 29 Nov 2010 13:33:39 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=37734

If Google does manage to close the deal to buy Groupon–acquisition discussions flagged by BoomTown 10 days ago–it will be at a cost that is likely to be much more than the $2.5 billion price tag being floated in the latest batch of rumors.

It’s not just that the deal will likely come in at a higher number–upwards of $3 billion, according to sources I have spoken to–which will mean a big payoff for Silicon Valley’s Accel Partners, Boston’s Battery Ventures and Russia’s DST Global.

Or that this deal will net New York bankers used on each side–Allen & Co. for Groupon and Morgan Stanley for Google–sizable fees.

It’s because as soon as it purchases the social group buying phenom, the search giant will be buying a whole lot of pricey regulatory scrutiny too.

That cost will be, many think, much deserved and will definitely not come at any discount, given the rising worries in Washington about the swaggering power of Google.

After ever-testier brushes with federal regulators–including over an overreaching attempt to join with Yahoo in search and online access to copyrighted books–Google narrowly missed getting approval for its $750 million purchase of mobile advertising start-up AdMob.

That deal was only saved after Apple made enough noise in the same space to take the focus off the controversy.

And let’s not forget Google suing the feds earlier this month over being excluded from competitive bidding to provide email and collaboration technology to the Interior Department’s 88,000 employees.

More seriously, Google has come under fire recently from numerous critics for its proposed purchase of huge flight data firm ITA Software for $700 million.

Those opposed to the acquisition, on antitrust grounds, contend that Google would control travel search in a way that would inevitably invite abuse.

The government, of course, is looking over the whole deal now.

Having Groupon in its arsenal would garner Google even more powerful pricing information from both customers and merchants across the globe.

That would in the lucrative local commerce arena. Currently, despite a plethora of clones, Groupon dominates socially fueled couponing across cities worldwide.

Owning the hot space around local purchasing and consumer information, combined with the social element, would be a tasty treat for Google.

The Silicon Valley search giant has struggled to deliver social tools to users, even as Facebook has morphed into a potent rival.

Google had looked at social reviews site Yelp for purchase previously, but that deal fell apart.

It has been introducing its own various local advertising and commerce efforts, which would be instantly turbocharged given Groupon’s much quicker progress.

In April, Groupon garnered a valuation of well above $1 billion in a massive venture funding.

It has used that money to buy up companies in the U.S. and internationally, trying to solidify itself as the major player in the marketplace.

If Google were to complete a deal to buy Groupon, it would have echoes of its purchase of YouTube in 2006 for $1.6 billion.

Many felt it a high price at the time, but it looks cheap now given how the site almost completely dominates Web video.

If that deal were to be struck today, of course, it is unlikely regulators would allow such a purchase to sail through the approval process so easily.

Thus, it will be interesting to see how they will react to a possible hook-up with Groupon, which–in many ways–is perhaps the most aggressive of Google’s moves to date to own valuable data up and down the food chain.

And, like I said, this particular move to buy discounting online could be one of its costliest too, in more ways than one.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101129/if-google-buys-groupon-itll-be-a-windfall-for-investors-bankers-and-regulators/feed/ 6 http://allthingsd.com/20101119/google-turns-its-local-eyes-to-groupon-but-who-else-could-enter-bidding/ http://allthingsd.com/20101119/google-turns-its-local-eyes-to-groupon-but-who-else-could-enter-bidding/#comments Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:38:06 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=37521

According to multiple sources close to the situation, Google is in discussions with local deals powerhouse Groupon about buying it.

Without making the requisite joke about the deal of the day, sources said the price being considered is certainly no discount–well above the $2 billion to $3 billion that Yahoo offered Groupon in acquisition talks that took place earlier this year.

But sources cautioned that the talks are not complete, and could also end up without any result, as the Yahoo discussions did.

In an email, a Google spokesperson said with some style: “Per usual, we don’t comment on rumor or speculation. If we did we’d be busy 24/7!”

A Groupon spokesperson was also sassy, noting: “Thanks for the heads-up!”

Still, the company appears to be engaged in a pattern of shopping itself around, via its bankers Allen & Co., even though Groupon investors have expressed a desire to stay independent many times.

But could there be other interested parties poking around, given the explosive revenue growth of Groupon–whose revenues are reportedly upward of $50 million a month–in the huge local retail market?

Sources said only three could pay such a high price: Microsoft, Amazon and, perhaps the most logical buyer, eBay.

Facebook is another company that could be interested, of course, although this would be a sizable purchase in both cost and also staff for the social networking giant, which has fewer employees than Groupon.

As does Google, all–except perhaps Facebook, which is not public yet–have more than enough cash reserves, as well as stock, to pay up for one of the more promising start-ups in a lucrative arena.

That would be local commerce. Currently, despite a plethora of clones, Groupon dominates socially fueled couponing across cities globally.

Owning the hot space around local purchasing and consumer information, combined with the social element, would be a tasty treat for Google.

The Silicon Valley search giant has struggled to deliver social tools to users, even as Facebook has morphed into a potent rival.

Google had looked at social reviews site Yelp for purchase previously, but that deal fell apart.

It has been introducing various local advertising and commerce efforts, efforts that would be turbocharged given Groupon’s quick progress.

In April, Groupon garnered a valuation of well above $1 billion in a massive venture funding.

It has used that money to buy up companies in the U.S. and internationally, trying to solidify itself as the major player in the marketplace.

If Google were to complete a deal to buy Groupon, it would have echoes of its purchase of YouTube in 2006 for $1.6 billion.

Many felt it a high price at the time, but it looks cheap today given how the site almost completely dominates Web video.

A purchase this size would also likely require bankers. Google’s favored one is Morgan Stanley.

But there is one major issue in a possible Google purchase of Groupon: Even more regulatory scrutiny by the federal government over its power online.

Google narrowly missed getting approval for its $750 million purchase of mobile advertising start-up AdMob.

And it is currently under fire from numerous critics for its proposed purchase of huge flight data firm ITA Software for $700 million.

Those opposed to the acquisition, on antitrust grounds, contend that Google would control travel search in a way that would invite abuse.

Having Groupon would garner Google even more powerful pricing information from both customers and merchants across the globe.

Stay tuned, but check out this video interview I did with Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason this summer in Vancouver, where I asked him specifically about Google’s interest (actually, I suggested he mug Google co-founder Larry Page):

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101119/google-turns-its-local-eyes-to-groupon-but-who-else-could-enter-bidding/feed/ 16 http://allthingsd.com/20101116/yahoo-announces-a-bunch-of-stuff-it-already-announced-except-local-deals-which-everyone-else-has-already-announced/ http://allthingsd.com/20101116/yahoo-announces-a-bunch-of-stuff-it-already-announced-except-local-deals-which-everyone-else-has-already-announced/#comments Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:35:39 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=37358

Today at the Web 2.0 Summit conference in San Francisco, Yahoo announced a bunch of new features, most of which the Silicon Valley Internet giant had already unveiled.

(Yes, this is the riveting life of BoomTown.)

Delivered by Chief Product Officer Blake Irving and other execs, the presentation included Sketch-a-Search, quick apps in search and Search Assist, as well as integration of Zynga social games and Twitter into the site and more about its Yahoo Contributor Network.

But there was news: A local offers program, similar to offerings recently made by Facebook and others.

There are 20 partners in this iteration, including Groupon, which Yahoo has tried to buy outright for many billions of dollars.

It seems to have saved some dough with this deal, which is being tested nationwide.

Yahoo’s approach to the discounted daily local deal boom is integration, of course, as well as aggregation, which is its best quality.

Of course, like all the updates, what Yahoo was announcing was essentially table stakes to keep up with what has been going on across the Internet at companies such as Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook.

In fact, one question at the press event this morning focused on the incremental nature of Yahoo’s changes in comparison to others, and whether it can innovate as quickly.

Irving, who is certainly a lively character and knows about those issues from his many years at Microsoft, said he is trying to force a culture where Yahoos can “quickly iterate [products] and “it is safe to innovate fast.”

Let’s hope!

Until then, here are the official press releases on the updates, as well as local offers.

Yahoo_Web 2 0 Announcement_FINAL

Yahoo_ Local Offers Release

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101116/yahoo-announces-a-bunch-of-stuff-it-already-announced-except-local-deals-which-everyone-else-has-already-announced/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101108/vipshop-bags-20m-to-bring-flash-sales-to-chinese-consumers/ http://allthingsd.com/20101108/vipshop-bags-20m-to-bring-flash-sales-to-chinese-consumers/#comments Mon, 08 Nov 2010 21:19:51 +0000 Jonathan Shieber http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=32164 Chinese venture capitalists are buying into the country’s “flash sales” membership-based retail websites, as online shoppers in the country get a taste of steep discounts on the gilded life through offerings from retailers like newly funded start-up Vipshop.

The Beijing-based company has raised $20 million from DCM and Sequoia Capital China in its first round of venture funding. The capital will enable the company to expand its business offering brand-name clothes, accessories, makeup and home furnishings through time-sensitive online discounted offers.

The company has 1.5 million members across China and is one of a handful of start-ups taking the model popularized in the U.S. by companies such as Groupon Inc. and Gilt Groupe Inc., European companies like Spanish internet retailers BuyVip GmbH and Privalia Venta Directa S.L., or the French site Vente Privee, which is backed by Summit Partners LLC.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101108/vipshop-bags-20m-to-bring-flash-sales-to-chinese-consumers/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100916/in-25-city-expansion-livingsocial-tries-to-play-catch-up-with-groupon/ http://allthingsd.com/20100916/in-25-city-expansion-livingsocial-tries-to-play-catch-up-with-groupon/#comments Thu, 16 Sep 2010 13:00:56 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=33823

Trying to keep up with the lightning-fast expansion of social buying leader Groupon, LivingSocial announced today that it has launched in 25 new cities in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.

It is now in 89 cities, compared with 230 where the heavily funded Groupon is doing business.

The Washington, D.C.-based LivingSocial also recently raised another round of venture funding, bringing its total to $50 million.

What does LivingSocial and Groupon, as well as a growing list of rival clones, do for all that investment?

In general, most offer a daily deal with a huge discount on a wide range of products and services–from spas to skydiving–in dozens of U.S. cities, for large groups of potential buyers on the Web, through email, mobile apps or via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Using social tools, the idea is to use collective buying power to get low prices and push customers to local businesses.

If a deal reaches the number of buyers it needs, which can be in the thousands, these services sell vouchers to the consumers and collect a hefty fee for the sale from the businesses it sends customers to.

The plus for many small businesses is to get a crack at a lot of new consumers–think of it as social networking lead generation.

Here is the official press release from LivingSocial on its market expansion:

LivingSocial Continues Rapid Expansion, Launching 25 New Markets Across the US, Canada and UK

With its second major multiple-city launch in 2010, LivingSocial now operates in 89 markets.

Washington D.C., September 16, 2010–Leading social shopping site LivingSocial, today illustrated rapid expansion by announcing that its Daily Deals program is now live in 25 additional markets across the US, Canada and the UK. Since July, LivingSocial has launched, on average, one market per day, and now reaches a total of 89 markets and more than 85 million people globally.

Launching today:

· United States: Albuquerque, Charleston, Chattanooga, Cincinnati, Colorado Springs, Dayton, El Paso, Fresno, Grand Rapids, Greenville, Honolulu, Hudson County, Milwaukee, North Jersey, Salt Lake City, Savannah, Tucson, Virginia Beach, Westside/South Bay (Los Angeles County) and Wilmington

· Canada: Calgary, Edmonton and Mississauga

· United Kingdom: Glasgow and Leeds

“We’re finally in Hawaii! We love launching in great new markets–places we all enjoy visiting and taking in the local culture. We’re really excited to work with merchants in all of these new markets to offer residents and visitors a chance to try out restaurants, shops, services, and attractions at amazing prices,” said Tim O’Shaughnessy, CEO and co-founder of LivingSocial. “We’re growing fast, but our Deal experience will remain the same–top quality merchants, significant savings, and customized and tailored deals.”

LivingSocial is the premiere social shopping site that lets anyone find shops, restaurants, activities and services popular in their area. The company has dedicated area experts on the ground in every market, constantly researching the best in local attractions to bring a savings of up to 90% to consumers.

Cashing in on LivingSocial Deals is easy: the site offers a new promotion every morning, announced via its website, newsletter, Twitter, Facebook, iPhone or Android app. Live for 24 hours, the Deal is available to anyone who clicks on it. Additionally, LivingSocial’s unique referral model gives users their Deal for free if they refer three friends who also participate. With an extensive user base, LivingSocial is able to provide local merchants with the unprecedented ability to reach both local customers and a worldwide audience.

For a full list of markets or to sign up your city, go to http://livingsocial.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100916/in-25-city-expansion-livingsocial-tries-to-play-catch-up-with-groupon/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20100909/opentable-ceo-jordan-talks-about-groupon-mobile-growth-and-why-ipos-arent-scary/ http://allthingsd.com/20100909/opentable-ceo-jordan-talks-about-groupon-mobile-growth-and-why-ipos-arent-scary/#comments Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:38:23 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=33570

It was certainly high time that BoomTown made a reservation–oh, I had to make that pun–to check in with OpenTable (OPEN) CEO Jeff Jordan.

The well-liked and voluble Silicon Valley exec–who had worked in a top job at eBay (EBAY) before moving over to the online restaurant reservation service and taking it public last year–has actually been up to a lot recently.

That includes a discount-coupon program that was just rolled out called Spotlight, which Jordan doesn’t even try to pretend is not a copycat move to take advantage of all the excitement around Groupon.

And there has been more, from adding restaurant reviews to a cloud computing offering to, most importantly, a big push for its mobile apps, which have been growing wildly.

Jordan also discussed how leading a public company has been going, especially since many Internet outfits have been avoiding the prospect.

So far, the company’s post-IPO life has been going well. OpenTable stock has been performing strongly this year, up 118 percent in the year to date, compared to many more lackluster performances in the sector.

Jordan, who had been in consideration for many big Internet CEO jobs, talks about all this and more in the video interview below:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100909/opentable-ceo-jordan-talks-about-groupon-mobile-growth-and-why-ipos-arent-scary/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100826/gilt-groupes-susan-lyne-talks-about-fashion-local-and-not-ipo/ http://allthingsd.com/20100826/gilt-groupes-susan-lyne-talks-about-fashion-local-and-not-ipo/#comments Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:03:10 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=32936

Yesterday, BoomTown dropped into the lower Park Avenue offices of the New York-based Gilt Groupe, the online fashion retail site.

Since 2007, the site has raised $83 million from General Atlantic and Matrix Partners, giving it a $400 million valuation and spurring interest from investment bankers who think Gilt might be a good candidate for an initial public offering.

That’s doubtful for now, given how important it is for Gilt to solidify and expand its business, even as competition increases.

But already, Gilt has built an important consumer brand online, using its funding to expand the member-based service that offers a range of well-known fashion brands and luxury goods at sample sale prices, much like the originator of the idea–France’s Vente-Privee.

To keep all the fashion moving forward, Gilt hired former Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) CEO Susan Lyne, who also was a big-time television exec at ABC, in 2008.

Along with a turbocharge of its operations as its sales grow, Gilt is also attempting to expand its offerings to travel and other experiences, via its Jetsetter site, and growing its base of local “city” sites for a range of services, such as spas.

Also on deck: More personalization for users, to better targets deals, as well as mobile versions of Gilt.

Of course, Gilt is operating in a very competitive arena, with rivals coming at the business from a number of different ways, such as Groupon, the hot discount deals start-up.

Here is the video interview I had with Lyne at Gilt’s Manhattan offices about all this and more:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100826/gilt-groupes-susan-lyne-talks-about-fashion-local-and-not-ipo/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20100824/update-groupons-andrew-mason-on-clones-the-gap-and-mugging-larry-page/ http://allthingsd.com/20100824/update-groupons-andrew-mason-on-clones-the-gap-and-mugging-larry-page/#comments Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:24:10 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=32819

Last week in Vancouver, BoomTown reunited with Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason, in an onstage interview at the Grow2010 conference being held in the lovely Canadian city.

While affable and unusually sweet-looking, Mason was cagey as can be about the really juicy stuff–revenue, IPO plans and acquisition interest–but he also had a lot to say about the spectacular growth of the social buying service.

That’s growth in all aspects–from cities served to sales to employees to, especially, giant piles of funding from VCs and a valuation of more than $1 billion.

But that’s not to say Groupon is going to have it easy, necessarily. While companies such as Google (GOOG), eBay (EBAY), Yahoo (YHOO) and even Facebook are obvious candidates to acquire the Chicago-based start-up, they all could just as easily decide to compete and try to replicate the service.

In fact, it is likely that at least one of them will.

In the video below, Mason tries to avoid these queries, but he gives a good update about Groupon, including its first national social discount offer at the Gap (GPS) last week.

Here’s the video, which is short:

And here is an older interview I did with Mason in March, when times were simpler:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100824/update-groupons-andrew-mason-on-clones-the-gap-and-mugging-larry-page/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20100818/liveblogging-the-geo-location-announcement-oh-the-facebook-places-that-youll-go-and-perhaps-foursquares-dennis-crowley/ http://allthingsd.com/20100818/liveblogging-the-geo-location-announcement-oh-the-facebook-places-that-youll-go-and-perhaps-foursquares-dennis-crowley/#comments Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:28:42 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=32420

BoomTown motored on down the lovely Highway 280 in Silicon Valley to Facebook to hear execs talk about a new geo-location feature the powerful social networking site is rolling out today.

And, the new name of the service, which will be deeply integrated into its current update system, as I reported earlier, will be “Places.”

The service seems to be basic and useful–it is reviewed here by Walt Mossberg–allowing people to post their location on the Wall of their Facebook profile, much as you might a photo or video.

There will be no games, no mayors and no special discounts either in Facebook Places–just plain and simple checking in and, presumably, taking names.

Privacy is a big focus of the launch of Places, which will allow users to decline to be placed by others.

The $100 million question is how much Facebook will allow the integration of other competing services including Foursquare.

A lot, it seems, as sources said Foursquare Founder and CEO Dennis Crowley was invited to appear for the announcements, perhaps to minimize the idea that this is a Foursquare-killer.

It’s not. Today.

4:30 pm PT: Of course, I and a badillion other reporters arrived on time, to 1050 Page Mill Road in Palo Alto, Calif. in a mass of media force that would probably better be deployed on more weighty topics than the particulars of checking in from some hip dive bar in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco.

After some waiting, we were finally bussed–or perhaps the better word is geo-located–to the actual HQ of Facebook nearby, and shepherded (just like sheep that we are!) into its cafeteria.

Except it had been duded up like a tiki lounge with palm trees and a driftwood stage. I felt as though I was suddenly on an episode of “Gilligan’s Island.” Cue Ginger for her big song number with the coconut bra!

Hey, Skipper…

5:18 pm: That skipper would be CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who was–as usual–dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and was endearingly awkward as always. It’s kind of touching that Zuckerberg still tries to have the just-us-guys posture, despite all the fame and fortune.

He quickly announced Facebook Places, across the U.S. tomorrow, on an Apple (AAPL) iPhone app and a mobile Web site.

He talked about deciding to finally launch Places after a dinner out with his girlfriend, when, deploying a test version, they realized another Facebook exec, Chris Cox and his fiance were nearby at another restaurant.

It was an earth-shaking moment, implied Zuckerberg.

Ahem, knock, knock…that’s Foursquare! Have you heard of it?

Yes, Facebook has been ogling the hot New York location start-up for a year, which is precisely why we are all here.

5:28 pm: Michael Sharon, the product manager of Places gave us a little run-through of the service, which was about what you would expect.

Foursquare except cleaner. Booyah except no games. Gowalla except, well, not Gowalla.

What’s important is that it is very integrated into Facebook’s current features, such as the Wall and status updates. Which is the right thing to do since Facebook has no business being all trendy.

The plains are covered with the bodies of pioneers, as they say, so what Facebook Places is, essentially, is a fast follow.

Sharon moved onto privacy, the big gorilla in the room. You have to opt-in and agree and click here and default to off and you can only tag your friends and you can also block them too.

Also, per Woody Allen’s “Bananas,” all Facebook citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside, so we can check.

Next, lots of info about APIs, so partners can also be part of Facebook’s geo-locating universe.

Up trotted Gowalla’s CTO and Co-founder Scott Raymond, who showed off Gowalla and Facebook integration.

Then a Foursquare exec–not Crowley, who has apparently checked in at a Chipolte in New York at the time of the places launch–loped up to say how great it all is. Just great! Really! Frankly, what else would the Foursquares say at this point.

Next: Yelp dude. Great! Just great! Integration! Check-in and pull your Facebook friends into the Yelp app.

Of course, it would not be a set without Booyah’s Keith Lee. Loves it! Fun! Just great!

This felt like a slow-moving version of invasion of the geo-location snatchers, a parade of glassy-eyed hostages, some scurvy mates walking the platform plank. Aaaaarrrr.

5:50 pm: Finally, Facebook’s product head Chris Cox, who is perhaps one of the more fetching geeks out there, bounded onstage to be all fetching and smart.

He talked about places like home, work and, um, bars. Well, actually, community locations, quoting Ray Oldenburg.

I was honestly not really listening to him at all, because I was riveted on his new haircut, which is just like the buzzed one Vince got on “Entourage” this season.

Errant thought: Those guys on “Entourage” would never check in from a bar! They are totally busy getting their groove on with the ladies–even Johnny Drama–and chillaxing with the doobies and tequila!

When I checked in again mentally, Cox was still chattering away about some glowing phone that tells you everything that happened in that bar forever and ever, since everyone was checking in and memorializing the place over time.

Good god, isn’t it enough that Facebook has all those drunkey-drunk photos from college students nationwide.

No! It wants it all! Yay, all our our drunkey-drunk moments will now be preserved in check-ins for all eternity!

Honey, remember when I ended up in the gutter here? Fun times for our grandkids to unearth one day!

5:58 pm: The Skipper Zuckerberg was back to moderate the Q&A.

Privacy questions about making private places public. If a lot of people are there, it becomes public.

Next: What up with monetization with deals? Zuckerberg notes that Places is at its starting point and “certainly you can imagine these things in the future.”

There was a question about how Places started. Well, IMHO, the moment when Facebook saw Foursquare’s innovation and freaked out.

A very goofy question about what happens when drunkey-drunk places shut down and all those memories are gone, which made me wonder if the reporter asking was drunkey-drunk.

“That’s not a problem we can solve,” said Cox.

Good answer.

Now, the Skipper wants to show us a Facebook custom, which made me suddenly nervous. Sacrifice of the media? No, just some switch-pulling thing.

There was apparently also another tradition–for a six-year-old company, that is–of hitting some gong.

Aha, it’s “The Gong Show.”

Geo-locate that.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100818/liveblogging-the-geo-location-announcement-oh-the-facebook-places-that-youll-go-and-perhaps-foursquares-dennis-crowley/feed/ 8 http://allthingsd.com/20100617/doj-sues-oracle-for-alleged-overcharging/ http://allthingsd.com/20100617/doj-sues-oracle-for-alleged-overcharging/#comments Thu, 17 Jun 2010 12:16:31 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=42883 The U.S. Justice Department has joined a whistle-blower lawsuit against Oracle accusing the company of defrauding the United States government. Filed back in May 2007 under the False Claims Act, the suit alleges Oracle overcharged the federal government by tens of millions of dollars by failing to offer it the same deep discounts the company offered commercial customers.

That’s a real problem, because Oracle was obligated to do just that under the terms of the General Services Administration contract by which it was bound.

“The whole idea of GSA schedule discounts is that the government, in the aggregate, is likely to be one of the largest purchasers of a company’s products, and is entitled to take advantage of the discounts that its large buying power should command,” the complaint claims.

That is tough to do if the discounts given to most favored customers are never disclosed. The GSA is supposed to be a guarantor of best price, an arrangement that allows the government to purchase products and services without having to negotiate a new contract every time. Evidently, in this particular case, it wasn’t.

Result: Taxpayers “overpaid for each Oracle software product by the amount of discounts and reductions from other commercial pricing practices that should have applied to each such purchase.”

Oracle (ORCL) has not yet responded to a request for comment. If it does, I’ll update here.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100617/doj-sues-oracle-for-alleged-overcharging/feed/ 0