[jiffylu]

This article is more about if you were in Groupon's shoes could you have done the following...

Yes. I think I could build my own Groupon... in fact hundreds of people have and many are quite profitable.

Could I build it to scale? Could I build a sustainable business that will be there for the long haul or be significant enough to be acquired? Could I find an untapped niche that the group buying biz model could exploit?

The writer doesn't even list many accomplishments and the barriers to entry that Groupon has created (besides capital and what access to capital buys you i.e. PR, buying competitors, buying super bowl ads.

He should have said... Could you compete against Groupon's salesforce? Could you compete with their ever decreasing cost of customer acquisition? Could you compete with their high gross margins while you are forced to cut your margins to compete?