And yet, contacts still have room to grow. Enter Ringya, an iPhone app which promises to add a layer of context on top of our sprawling lists of co-workers, club members, parent groups and so on.

It works like this: Instead of sorting everyone by name, Ringya files contacts into “rings.” You can share a “ring” with others, meaning the contact info of everyone on the list can be ported from one phone to another in one step.

(Ringya made the list you see to the right before we talked and shared it with me. And no, I have no idea why they gave my co-workers formal prefixes).

Then, if someone who’s sharing the ring adds a new contact, all users will see the new person in the list when they look at the app.

Gal Nachum, Ringya’s co-founder, calls this “inherent virality,” since using the mobile app normally spreads its reach. If a Ringya user shares their ring with someone who’s not a user, the second person gets a personalized text message asking them to download the app.

Unfortunately for some potential users (especially those without iPhones, although an Android version of the app is on the way), this means the organized contact lists are accessible only through the app.

For those who do have the iPhone app, though, Ringya offers a few nifty features. As with the mobile messaging app GroupMe, it’s very easy to contact everyone in a ring at once.

The difference is that while GroupMe lets users text or message each other in-app, Ringya users can contact their lists via a phone call, text message or email.

Especially promising is the context Ringya offers for incoming calls. When someone from one of your rings calls you, Ringya shows whatever info it has about that person (e.g. “Editor at AllThingsD”) before you pick up the phone.

Finally, the app lets users create a new ring by snapping a picture of a paper contact list. This is definitely an effort-saver in theory, especially for organizations with more than a dozen members that don’t put their rosters online. But the import of a short three-person contact list I made took more than 10 minutes to process.

Even with my handwriting, though — which was once generously likened to chicken scratch — all the names and numbers were imported perfectly.

Ringya is a free app available for download from the iOS App Store here.

Image copyright Vicki France

In spite of a soft economy, with about 14.5 million unemployed Americans and 8.2 million under-employed, people are still holding onto paid television, and actually consuming more video than ever before. Netflix has crossed over 30 million subscribers in the U.S., Hulu is approaching three million, but only 2.65 million people in the country “cut the cord” from traditional paid TV service. In fact, Americans are still spending about 33 hours a week watching traditional TV (that’s 4.5 hours a day!), compared to 27 minutes a week of streaming video. So where is this TV revolution the pundits have been blogging about??

Maybe we need to stop thinking of cable TV the way we think of phone service. It’s easy for technologists to predict that streaming video will do to cable companies what Skype did to the telcos, but I propose a new lens to filter TV technologies: an App that replaces broadcast television is like saying Yelp should replace Taco Bell.

My contention is that a “TV revolution,” as some are calling it, is not in the cards. Instead, I see a “transformation” of TV taking place, and while transformations are far less sexy to blog about than revolutions, I think this one could be pretty fun and pretty lucrative for tech companies that get it right. First, let’s clarify “transformation” versus “revolution,” in the context of Web services and Internet Apps:

• Revolutionary apps fundamentally overthrow an analog provider with a digital alternative. Examples: Skype is a substitute for your landline. iTunes is a substitute for Virgin Megastore. LinkedIn is a substitute for schmoozing. Match.com is a substitute for my pushy (but well-intentioned) auntie in India.
• Transformative Apps make analog providers a more pleasing or user-friendly experience. Examples: Fandango makes going to movies easy and predictable. Foodspotting makes finding the perfect entree a delightful experience. Mint makes banking more manageable and transparent. Driving from San Francisco to a cabin in Tahoe is a breeze thanks to Google Maps. None of these technologies replace the desired outcome, but they greatly enhance the experience to achieve it.

All evidence and viewership data suggests that YouTube, Hulu or Netflix isn’t a substitute for the experience of gathering around a big-screen to watch the Super Bowl or the latest episode of American Idol. Apps that make the offline experience of watching traditional television better, more fun and more social will be far more successful than those that try to overthrow TV. The Twitter app on my phone, for example, is the perfect TV companion and primary beneficiary of this phenomenon.

There is no question that on-demand, instant access to great shows on the iPad or laptop is one of the coolest things ever, but this is proving to be additive and incremental to traditional TV viewership at the moment. Most consumers still love the experience of watching TV on the TV.

In 2012, the Olympics provided the perfect case study for the transformation that’s taking place. Between the live streams on NBC.com, real-time access to event scoring and the medal count, we have never had this much access to the Olympics in history. Nearly every major event was available online, and usage was tremendous. But what pundits failed to point out this past summer is that we did not give up big screen, traditional television. NBC’s primetime broadcast, which was all taped coverage, averaged 31.1 million viewers per night, which was up 12 percent from the Beijing Olympics in 2008! According to NBC, many people who watched events, streaming live to a Web browser, also watched them again on television.

We have 70 years of consumer behavior patterns established and burned into the American psyche. And on top of that, television is big business. It exists on $65 billion of advertising spending and $60 billion of subscription revenue, and that’s 125 billion reasons why the industry will resist this revolution. In stark contrast to my friends in Silicon Valley who have said that they want to “destroy television,” I strongly believe that television should be transformed. And those of us inspired by the opportunity to innovate in the TV industry should be thinking about the opportunity in a transformational way if we hope to succeed.

Ashwin Navin is the CEO and co-founder of Flingo, the largest publisher of Smart TV software including apps from FOX, A+E Networks, Showtime, the WB, Transworld and TMZ.

The company will launch an update to its Messenger app for iOS and Android on Thursday afternoon, allowing users to send short voice messages to one another inside of the application, up to a minute in length.

A clever addendum, bringing Messenger up to par with Apple’s iMessage service (which lets users send voice messages via the voice memo app) and BlackBerry Messenger, while giving it a leg up on basic SMS.

Which is really the service with the biggest target on its back. SMS, the 160-character message service ubiquitous in every country, dominates communication across the globe, from developing countries to the so-called “first world.” And all of the big mobile players like Apple, Google and Facebook want in on that sort of communication virality.

That virality is the key to growth, especially in developing countries inside of Africa, South America and Asia that Facebook is targeting as the next major areas of expansion. Find a way to break into those markets through free, easy communication services — like, for example, letting users access Facebook Messenger for Android without the need for a Facebook account — and you’ll find a way to grow your user base from the ground up via word of mouth.

Also particularly noteworthy: In Facebook’s update on Thursday, Canadian users on iOS can start using Messenger to make VOIP calls inside the app. That’s a pretty Skypey, Google Voice-y move by the social giant. I can only assume that if the test takes off in Canada, the next move down the line will be video calling.

In essence, owning the chains of communication is Facebook’s best path to growth. Now that the service has saturated most areas of the developed world, hitting the billion-user mark and seeing its growth curve begin to flatten, Facebook must think differently: What are the ways people communicate with one another outside of Facebook? And how can we own them, too?

Cloning Snapchat was just a drop in the bucket. Expect more in 2013.

“It’s Time. Demand a Plan to End Gun Violence,” reads the ad, which was signed by a plethora of major digital players.

They include, in part: Lerer Venture’s Ken Lerer (who organized the effort); SV Angel’s Ron Conway, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, Skype President Tony Bates, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, adviser Bill Campbell, Flipboard CEO Mike McCue, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley, Findery’s Caterina Fake, Emerson Collective’s Laurene Jobs, Code Advisors’ Quincy Smith, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams and Zuckerberg Media’s Randi Zuckerberg.

In addition, there is a large-scale social media effort under way for Demand a Plan, which signee and venture capitalist Fred Wilson likens on his blog to other Internet-wide campaigns.

“Like the PIPA/SOPA efforts last year, this effort is diverse, distributed, chaotic, and hopefully effective and powerful,” he wrote.

Here’s the ad itself:

The days of old-school calling or texting someone — even on a cellphone — are coming to an end, says Jibe Mobile CEO Amir Sarhangi.

“You don’t necessarily pick up the phone,” said Sarhangi. “In a lot of cases people are really communicating through applications.”

The company has a bold plan to try to convince developers to use Jibe as a means for adding video chat into their own applications.

On Tuesday night the company is announcing it has picked up $8.3 million in funding from European carrier Vodafone and Japanese gamemaker MTI. While Jibe’s service isn’t dependent on carrier support, it can work with a new generation of carrier-supported service known as RCS, or Rich Communication Services. In addition to being an investor, Jibe says Vodafone has been an early partner in its efforts.

Carriers around the globe have been exploring RCS, now known by the brand name Joyn, for years as a way to offer interoperable services beyond text and MMS, though the effort has proved slow and challenging. Jibe hopes its service, which supports but doesn’t require Joyn, can help that effort break through some chicken-and-egg issues.

The company is working with about 500 developers. A few Android demo apps are already in the Google Play store, with more Jibe-powered apps expected to hit early next year, Sarhangi said.

Jibe isn’t the only company that sees a future in shifting communications into the app. Rebtel, which has millions of users of its messaging apps, announced on Tuesday that it will offer programming hooks to let other developers include its messaging capabilities in their apps. Twilio has long focused on this area, particularly when it comes to adding voice and text to apps.

Jibe isn’t limiting its service to just video and voice, noting that it can also be used for other things such as real-time gaming. In one demo, the company shows how two players could play air hockey — a game that doesn’t forgive much lag time — on separate phones.

The “phone in” and “phone out” capabilities, offered through a partnership with Jajah, will end as of Jan. 30. Yahoo stopped taking in new funds for accounts as of Friday, and said customers will be given information by Jajah on how to get refunds for any remaining balances. Yahoo said free voice calling from one Yahoo messenger user to another will continue to be offered.

Yahoo also said that interoperability with Windows Live Messenger will cease on Dec. 14. That one isn’t a huge shock, given that Microsoft is in the process of retiring the Windows Live Messenger service in favor of Skype.

Meanwhile, the company is also axing the Pingbox and public chat features of its instant-messaging program.

Emoticons were spared the ax, so feel free to send a friend a frowny face anytime.

Chris Dixon will indeed be the latest VC to join Andreessen Horowitz, as I had reported earlier was likely, starting in January.

Dixon is a lively and interesting choice for the high-profile Silicon Valley venture capital firm, having been a successful serial entrepreneur, a savvy angel investor and also a voluble tech scene commenter in blogs and on Twitter.

Perhaps most interesting is that Dixon, who is largely based in New York, will move to California to join what Marc Andreessen describes as a “single-office” firm.

In other words, Chris, get ready to be force-fed at Hobee’s!

In all seriousness, Andreessen said in an interview today that his big criteria for picking Dixon was because, “when the next Mark Zuckerberg walks into the room, we want them to say, ‘I want that person.’”

In addition, he noted that Andreessen Horowitz has a “bias for entrepreneurs … and Chris is the real deal when it comes to being an entrepreneur.”

Indeed, Dixon was CEO and co-founder of SiteAdvisor, which was acquired by McAfee, as well as recommendations engine Hunch, which was bought by eBay a year ago.

He is one of the founding members of Founder Collective, an East Coast-based seed-stage venture firm run by entrepreneurs, and is also an active angel investor, including in Skype, Invite Media and OMGPOP. Previously, he programmed financial algorithms at a high-speed options trading firm and has also worked at Bessemer Venture Partners.

Dixon, whose job at Bessemer was junior, said that he became interested in Andreessen Horowitz once he learned more about them after helping the start-ups he had invested in with fundings. He was especially struck by all the added help the firm provided in areas such as recruiting.

While he said his investing as a partner there would be “non-thematic,” he noted that it was likely he would “tilt more toward consumer” investments.

“I am going to try to pick the special bird,” he said, paraphrasing a quote by famed Sequoia Capital VC Mike Moritz. “And not the flock.”

Here is a blog post on the move by Dixon and one by Andreessen, in which he apparently thinks I leak for a living.

According to sources, well-known New York techie Chris Dixon is in the final stages of discussions to become a partner at the high-profile Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.

While the deal is not yet complete, Dixon seems likely to become the firm’s latest addition. It’s not clear what his area of specialty will be, but it is likely to center on start-ups, given his experience.

Dixon is one the more voluble and energetic tech players on the New York scene, as well as a serial entrepreneur with several prominent exits. He was CEO and co-founder of SiteAdvisor, which was acquired by McAfee, as well as recommendations engine Hunch, which was bought by eBay a year ago.

He is one of the founding members of Founder Collective, an East Coast-based seed-stage venture firm run by entrepreneurs and is also an active angel investor, including in Skype, Invite Media and OMGPOP. Previous to this, he also programmed financial algorithms at a high-speed options trading firm and has also worked at Bessemer Venture Partners.

In his bio on the Founder Collective site, Dixon said: “I think one of the reasons I can be helpful to entrepreneurs is I’ve worked in the trenches on both the startup side and the investor side.”

His selection by Andreessen Horowitz is an interesting one, since it is the first by the firm of a solidly New York-area techie, although it is not clear if Dixon will move to California or not.

He’s also not been afraid to tangle with VCs in his frequent blogging. In one post in July, titled “Shoehorning Startups into the VC Model,” he noted:

“A startup should raise venture capital (or ‘venture-style’ angel/seed funding) only if: 1) the goal is to build a billion-dollar (valuation) company, and 2) raising millions of dollars is absolutely necessary or will significantly accelerate growth. … Unfortunately, many of these startups graft VC-friendly narratives onto their plans and raise too much money. Short term it might seem like a good idea but long term it won’t.”

To that end, RIM this week added a new feature to BBM: BBM Voice, which allows customers to make free voice calls over Wi-Fi to other BBM users around the world. It’s a nice enhancement to the service, particularly since it’s designed with a split-screen feature that allows users to talk and text or email simultaneously.

“We’re expanding the capabilities of the service for deeper social engagement and even greater collaboration, beginning with voice functionality,” said T.A. McCann, VP of BBM at RIM. “BBM Voice … is for when you’re traveling and you want to call home without worrying about phone charges.”

Not exactly a new idea.

One could argue that RIM is late to the game again here, and only doing what Apple has already done with iMessage and FaceTime, Google with GTalk, and Microsoft with Skype. And that’s certainly true. BBM Voice is something RIM should have done long ago.

But that doesn’t make the fact that RIM is rolling it out now any less important. BBM Voice is RIM’s effort to keep BBM popular in an era of increasingly advanced smartphone platforms and apps. And while it’s not a major advancement, it’s likely a good way of keeping current subscribers in the fold — particularly in emerging markets where SMS text-messaging fees can be prohibitively expensive.

BBM Voice may not win RIM many new customers, but it may help it hold on to those it already has, by giving them another reason not to defect to competing platforms.

There will be tons of big-name apps missing when Windows 8 goes on sale at the end of the week, but Skype won’t be one of them.

The Internet calling service said it will have a new-style Windows app ready to go when the operating system hits store shelves on Friday.

One should hope so, since Microsoft paid $8.5 billion to acquire Skype last year.

Skype won’t be alone in the Windows Store, for sure. Already Netflix and eBay have apps, for example, and I am sure Microsoft will have some new names to announce this week. But from the current look of things, there will be more big names missing than present.

The availability of apps will be important to the success of the new operating system given that older apps are relegated to an old-style and less touch friendly Desktop app in Windows 8. With the Windows RT variant that powers Surface and a handful of other machines, old-style Windows apps won’t run at all.

As for the Windows 8 version of Skype, the new app can run in the background and show incoming messages on its home screen “live tile.” With Windows 8, users can merge their Skype ID with their Microsoft account, so users can sign on once to both their machine and to the calling service.

The new Skype app also integrates with Windows 8’s built-in People app, making Skype just one more way to connect with one’s contacts.

One feature that won’t be ready at launch is group video chat, though Skype said that ability is in the works and should be available soon. Skype was also late to Windows Phone, launching in beta form only this past April.

As the new head of Best Buy’s online business, Durchslag couldn’t be joining the largest U.S. electronics retailer at a messier time.

Over the past year, Best Buy has faced enormous pressure from online competitors, which can often accept lower margins because they lack the expense of operating physical locations. To deal with those challenges, the company is undergoing a massive period of disruption that has included the resignation of its CEO and an unsolicited bid from its founder.

In an interview with AllThingsD, Durchslag acknowledged the challenges ahead: “You know me — if it isn’t hard, it isn’t worth doing,” he said. “There’s a lot of work to be done, but I think it’s also doable.”

Durchslag, who officially started Monday, is the president of Best Buy Online and a company senior vice president in charge of Best Buy’s online and mobile commerce businesses. He joins from Expedia, where he was president for 14 months. During his time there, he was responsible for managing the company’s strategy, including product development, marketing and operations for its 27 sites around the world. While he was president, Expedia made some fairly drastic changes to its platform: It spun off TripAdvisor to become a separate publicly traded company, and it formed a partnership with Groupon to create a travel-focused daily deals business.

Before that, Durchslag worked at Skype — before eBay purchased it — and Motorola.

He said one main reason he decided to take on this task was because he believes it is a cause worth fighting for: Best Buy employs roughly 170,000 workers, which represents a significant number of U.S. jobs. He said those people are playing a valuable role in “helping customers figure out how to use all the products and technologies available to them.”

And he believes things can be fixed. “I think that with so much going on at Best Buy, there’s never been a bigger felt need for change,” he said. “All parts of the company are recognizing that things need to change. … My inclination is to strike while the iron is hot. And it’s hot.”

Indeed, there better be a fire burning under management’s seats. In August, Best Buy reported one of its worst quarters ever. Revenue, gross profit margins and same-store sales all eroded, with earnings falling to $12 million from $128 million a year earlier. And now it’s confronted with the need to make changes just as it heads into the busiest retail season of the year.

One of the opportunities that Durchslag is excited to explore is the company’s overall strategy for creating a multi-channel experience, which is one of the industry’s big buzzwords right now. It means creating a closer connection between its online and bricks and mortar experiences, so that customers can be recognized seamlessly across both. Durchslag believes that Best Buy, as the largest electronics retailer and the world’s 11th largest online retailer, has a special opportunity to leverage those assets. “I see that this bricks and clicks model is going to be the key to consumer delight — you have to be able to do both well,” he said.

While many big box retailers have considered e-commerce sites the enemy, clearly Best Buy has decided it is better to embrace it than to fight it. Durchslag said it has one thing going for it that the travel industry did not. About half of travel purchases have already shifted online, whereas the electronics category is seeing less than half that rate. “Consumers want to touch and feel the products and make sure they meet the expectations,” he said. “They want to be comfortable that it’s going to work in the home.”

He’s also not entirely sold that Best Buy has a “showrooming” problem, where customers walk in to touch and feel the products but then order them somewhere else, like Amazon. “I think that consumers do that, but it’s too soon for me to have a fact-based answer. But the question is, how many consumers are actually doing that? To some extent I see that as an opportunity. If they are in our store, they are our customer to lose.”

Not enough Dr. Drew for you? Now you can buy more. The physician-turned-celebrity talker is launching Greenroom, a service that sells one-on-one video chats with famous people.

Next week, for instance, Pinsky is auctioning off 15 minutes of his time. Starting bid: $200.

Greenroom’s pitch is as simple as a Skype call: Celebrities sell Web video chats for a fixed price or via an auction, and the site collects 25 percent of the fee. The chats are private, but moderated by an operator. That’s it.

In other words, it’s a personal-appearance broker, updated for the Facetime/Google Hangout age. This is either one of those companies that should have been launched a long time ago, or one that hasn’t been launched before with good reason.

We’ll find out soon. Pinsky and co-founder Curtis Giesen say they’ve raised $2.5 million to get the service going, and Giesen is trying to round up a roster of famous people you might want to pay to see.

So far, that list is short on A-listers, but Giesen does have a blessing from the NFL Players Association. So maybe one day you’ll shell out a lot of money to chat with Eli Manning over the Internet. Meanwhile, you can get Kevin Faulk for $200, or Ray Rice for $1,500.

Pinsky says the idea was inspired by the personal lunches that Warren Buffett auctions off each year, albeit at a much higher price.

But doesn’t this swim against the tides of social media, where celebrities already speak directly to their fans, except it’s one-to-many instead of one-on-one?

Yes, and that’s intentional, says Pinsky, who uses Twitter but says he doesn’t “know that it’s accomplishing anything.” Twitter lets him talk at people, but the replies he gets are … unpleasant.

“Everyone I knew that had a public life was made miserable by Twitter, because it’s an environment  where people would come say the most vile things,” he says. “You would be shocked to see what most people have to tolerate on Twitter.”

This isn’t the first time that Pinsky and Giesen have taken a stab at the Web together. The former Amherst classmates launched DrDrew.com in the late ’90s, but that Internet start-up met the same fate as most Internet start-ups launched in the late ’90s. Liberty Media Corp. CEO Greg Maffei invested in that venture, and is putting money into the new one, too.

Greenroom: How it Works from Greenroom on Vimeo.

“AT&T does not have a similar preloaded video chat app that competes with FaceTime or any other preloaded video chat application,” chief privacy officer Bob Quinn said in a blog post. “Nonetheless, in another knee jerk reaction, some groups have rushed to judgment and claimed that AT&T’s plans will violate the FCC’s net neutrality rules. Those arguments are wrong.”

Until the arrival of iOS 6 this fall, Apple’s video chat has worked only over a Wi-Fi connection. The new operating system, by contrast, will also work over cellular connections, provided the carrier supports it.

AT&T has said it will allow FaceTime over cellular, but only for those with one of its new shared-data plans.

Public Knowledge is among the interest groups that have come out against AT&T’s approach.

“By blocking FaceTime for many of its customers, AT&T is violating the FCC’s Open Internet rules,” John Bergmayer, senior staff attorney at Public Knowledge, said in a blog post. “These rules state that mobile providers shall not ‘block applications that compete with the provider’s voice or video telephony services.’ Although carriers are permitted to engage in ‘reasonable network management,’ there is no technical reason why one data plan should be able to access FaceTime, and another not.”

Update, 8:05 am PT: In a statement that followed AT&T’s blog post, consumer group Free Press took issue with the carrier’s defense of its policy.

“AT&T is inventing words that are not in the FCC’s rules in a weak attempt to justify its blocking of FaceTime,” Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner said in a statement. “The FCC’s rules are crystal clear: AT&T is not permitted to block voice or video telephony applications that compete with its own services. There is simply nothing in the rules that distinguishes ‘preloaded’ applications from ‘downloaded’ applications.”

Turner noted that the plans AT&T is requiring customers to have are ones that include unlimited voice minutes.

“FaceTime allows people to reduce their use of voice services, but AT&T is making you buy unlimited voice in order to use FaceTime over mobile,” Turner said. “AT&T is trying to invent a loophole in the rules, but this kind of anti-consumer behavior is the exact thing the FCC’s protections are designed to prohibit.”

One puzzling part of AT&T’s approach is the fact that it is allowing FaceTime on the mobile share plans but not on the stand-alone tiered data plans, which would also charge customers for their FaceTime use. Turner picked up on that as well.

“Furthermore, AT&T’s assertion — that FaceTime is allowed on mobile share plans because the app is data-intensive and those plans are designed to make more data available — is ludicrous and contradicted by the facts,” Turner said. “If that were true, why should current non-mobile share customers that purchase 3GB of data be blocked from using mobile FaceTime, while customers who purchase the 1GB shared data tier are not blocked?”

It’s not well known, but last year, before it went public, Groupon almost didn’t.

With pressure from former board member Howard Schultz, and also doubts about timing expressed to CEO Andrew Mason by outside investors such as Silicon Valley luminaries Marc Andreessen and Mary Meeker, the Chicago-based daily deals site pressed forward, anyway.

Since then, it has been a tough ride for Groupon and, perhaps most of all, for Mason.

Yesterday afternoon, I got on Skype to do a video interview with him about the continued swirl — much of it very negative — around the company he co-founded and leads.

“I love Groupon,” he said. “Groupon is my life.”

Not so much everyone else these days — who are starting to compare the company to Web 1.0 flameout Webvan and even, in the ultimate digital insult, Pets.com.

That’s a false comparison — those were both never profitable, and had negative cash flow, unlike the much larger Groupon.

Still, Groupon’s stock has been under pressure pretty much since the time of its IPO last year, with critics hammering on everything from whether its business plan is fundamentally flawed to its controversial accounting to the goofy nature of Mason himself.

He even got dinged for drinking a beer at a Groupon all-hands employee meeting. (I’m fine with that one, by the way.)

Groupon shares hit a new low last week, after it reported second-quarter earnings that showed better profits, but a revenue miss. Growth prospects in its core coupon business, or lack thereof, was pointed to by Wall Street investors for the continued sell-off.

One bright spot was its nine-month-old Groupon Goods, which sells a variety of products and which has grown to $200 million in annualized revenue. But the lower-margin offering makes up a smaller part of the company’s overall results, as does its impressive improvements in mobile commerce.

These two positive developments have failed to impress, though, with the stock at even lower lows today — at $4.74 a share. That’s down 82 percent since Groupon went public, making the company worth $3 billion, or about half of what Google had once offered to buy it, and a little more than double its cash on hand.

In other words, it is crunch time for Mason, who must answer to shareholders, employees and his board, and must somehow get Groupon to a better place, and fast.

Among the myriad of risks for him as he does: Everything from new management to the sale of Groupon.

That is not in the cards right now, of course. And, as usual, the affable exec talks with confidence about the company.

To his credit, in this long interview, he is also pretty candid about the struggle.

It’s well worth a watch (except for me looking like I just got off a red-eye flight, which I did).

Here’s Mason: