SCHED* SXSW 2011

event::type Panel → Interactive
Venue: Austin Convention Center, Room 9ABC (500 E Cesar Chavez St)
Speaker: Aaron With, Andrew Mason
About: Explosive Internet cancer Groupon, the fastest-growing website ever, intentionally wastes endless amounts of staff time and marketing-budget dollars on baffling initiatives. From the bizarre write-ups of its daily deals to uncomfortable social experiments such as awarding $100,000 scholarship funds to babies whose parents met on a Groupon date, Groupon can't resist executing its silliest, darkest, dumbest, and most pointless impulses on a grand scale. By launching one incredibly expensive joke after another with no clear tie to revenue, Groupon may very well be blowing its own death horn. Why?