Group think
Seasoned tech veterans will remember the dot-com bubble - the investment frenzy characterised by the massive over-valuation of any company with .com in its name - when everyone who was anyone wanted to work for an Internet company.
Ten years later it once more looks like there will be an investment frenzy around Internet companies, but this time with a more solid foundation. The catalyst for this round is the mobile Internet land-grab and the the companies most likely to splash the cash are its two most prominent participants: Apple and Google.
Apple's Steve Jobs has already announced he's got $51 billion burning a hole in his wallet, in with Google adding $2 billion per quarter to its cash pile, it must be sniffing around for acquisitions too, something that would appear to have been confirmed by tech business site All Things Digital.
The WSJ site has reported that its sources say Google is in discussions with ‘deal of the day' giant Groupon with a view to acquiring it for $3 billion. For those of you unfamiliar with Groupon, it provides a pretty simple service: notifications of special retail offers at the requested locations. Doesn't seem like a very big deal does it? But according to the story Groupon is raking in $50 million a month on the back of it.
You have been able to get Groupon for UK cities since it acquired German startup Citydeal earlier this year.
This is one of those very hedged, ‘it might amount to nothing' type of stories, but we've got a feeling there are going to be some big bucks paid for companies like Groupon and Foursquare in the coming months, and we wouldn't be surprised to see Google and Apple bidding against each other once more.
