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Google Offers beta launching in New York City and the Bay Area

15 points| ordinaryman | 14 years ago |googleblog.blogspot.com

8 comments

arturadib|14 years ago

Does Google have a "always play catch-up" mantra in addition to "don't be evil"?

- Hotmail (Gmail)

- Mapquest (G Maps)

- Firefox/IE (G Chrome)

- iOS (Android)

- Apple TV (G TV)

- Twitter (G Buzz)

- Facebook (G +)

- Groupon (G Offers)

etc.

ghurlman|14 years ago

Well, considering that they started out taking an existing concept and making it better...

- Google (AltaVista/Lycos/etc)

simonsarris|14 years ago

Calling it "always play catch-up" is unfair. It's really "See an existing product and try to execute it better" with catch-up as the first phase.

And oftentimes when they do play catch-up they certainly don't have to for long. If anything, for the first three any catching up to do is going to be the other way around.

Pewpewarrows|14 years ago

As opposed to? It's very rare to ever see a completely unique idea. I guarantee that just about every product you use on a day to day basis is a derivative of a derivative of a derivative of the original concept.

Taking a core product and improving it is one of the main pieces of advice in this community. I don't see why there should be any negative connotation for a larger business doing it as well. And for the record, I don't see a single product on the left-hand side of that list that wasn't "in response", "playing catch-up", or a derivative idea from someone else's hard work.

gigawatt|14 years ago

I gotta say, I'm already burned out on the Groupon-type sites. I'm not sure why they think I need to get waxed two times a week—I haven't seen a relevant offer in months, after buying a few in the first couple months. The only one that I still check interestedly is the Living Social travel deals, because with those, if you get a hit once a year, it was worth it.

lpolovets|14 years ago

If you like Living Social travel deals, SniqueAway and Jetsetter are great too. (I'm not affiliated with either one.)

mikeryan|14 years ago

Funny. Just about a week after I opted out of all of my offer emails. The signal to noise was getting out of hand.

seagaia|14 years ago

Heh, after a failed deal with Groupon this came about, apparently.

It'll probably fly better, too, since it'll integrate with the rest of the google services, and help google use us as a product...

Now only for it to start in a city I live in.