continuations:

On one hand I can understand Google’s aggressive interest in Groupon. Groupon appears to be one of the few companies that has cracked the code on making money from local businesses. Groupon’s revenues are rumored to be around $50 million per month, which is impressive. But…

Sawickipedia says: Actually what it says is that local small businesses won’t ever buy ads on a cpc or cpm basis in any meaningful way.  And Google is dead on right.  Small businesses don’t have the people resources to bother with anything other then sales.  Groupon is such a win for small businesses because it’s a CLOSED sale ad model.  It’s CPA but on a whole another level. Google w/ adsense display and adx has a TON of display inventory ripe for a Groupon model.  And algorithm’s work very well in optimizing this type of remnant inventory. 

@Joshelman argued that Google wants Groupon for a would you like fries with that add on.  Not so.  This about getting ad inventory through perhaps the largest way local businesses will buy ads.