[antiscam]

It wouldn't be right to assume that because Google has many smart people, everything they do as a result is smart. Google is hardly an innovative company anymore. In fact, they seem mostly to be coasting on existing models and paying lots of people mostly just so that they don't work for existing and potential competitors.

[tptacek]

I think this is a fallacy stemming from the fact that Google's initial products were so unbelievably successful and important that they are likely to be permanently hard to top. I do not agree with you that Google is no longer innovative, and I particularly disagree with the notion that they are so uninnovative that they'd believe they lack the technological prowess to compete with Groupon.

[antiscam]

Oh, I don't mean to suggest that at all. I'm just trying to suggest that an offer from Google doesn't, to me, at present imply that the offeree has any special merit. Google is cash-rich and can use cash strategically.

[cageface]

Google search and gmail are hard to top, certainly, but their product prowess doesn't seem to be scaling with their engineering resources at all.