[staunch]

LinkedIn blows it on a bloated staff and expenses. No excuse, they just suck.

Pandora has been bent over by content owners. They're not powerful enough to dictate reasonable terms.

Groupon is waging all out war to dominate. They're hoping when the dust settles they'll own one of the richest markets in the world.

[polyfractal]

Maybe I'm cynical, but I think they are trying to grab a ton of money while the getting is good, knowing that their business model is not sustainable. They spend enormous sums of money on sales-staff (to get the deals from vendors) and many vendors say they are unhappy after the groupon goes live. Apparently most groupon-buyers are cheap one-time-visitors and the local vendor doesn't recoup their expenses.