I must admin that I’ve been baffled by Groupon’s success.  I’ve been a member for probably 6 months and only bought one Groupon – a discount to a dry cleaner that i already use, which I’m sure they were thrilled about.
Basically Groupon aggregates local email addresses – they are an intermediary.  In a world where every industry is constantly being disintermediated, why are we heaping praise on a new intermediary?
I could care less about the witty writing – I never read it.  I guess it makes for some …

Consumers are frustrated.  As innovations lead us to newer, better, faster, more powerful products and services, we keep finding a disparity between our purchase of those products and services and the rights we have to them.
Google and Amazon both recently announced online music “lockers” that allow consumers to upload music – that they have legally purchased – for backup purposes and to stream via a web browser or mobile app.   But the music labels think they should be paid to allow this type of service.   As a result, …

By @RoccoTarasi
In the last month the SEC has said that it will consider changes to certain capital markets regulations, including:
1. Raising the 500 shareholder threshold that triggers a public disclosure of financial results (and usually results in a public stock offering);
2. Adjusting the ban on general solicitations that prohibit or restrict publicizing share offerings; and
3. Allowing some form of crowdsourcing to raise smaller amounts of capital from a larger group of investors.  (via Mashable and VentureBeat)
Changing these and other rules are long, long overdue.  Our capital markets operate under some …

There I was, 2 weeks ago sitting in an auditorium on a Sunday attending TEDxCMU.   It was an inspiring and emotional day with 12 fantastic talks from local and national presenters.
One of the talks was by Luis von Ahn, a CMU professor.  It only took me a minute to realize that I was in the presence of an amazing innovator, and that I had the privilege of being one of the first people to hear about his latest project.
All the confirmation I needed that what I witnessed was important came …

I just bought my new iPhone 4, but I really wanted to “go Droid”, probably with the Droid X from Verizon. Of course, at the pace that new handsets are being released there is always a better device right around the corner.  But at some point you have to stop waiting and take the plunge.
I certainly wasn’t lacking in reasons for ditching the Apple/AT&T “partnership” (I use that term loosely).  AT&T has been ripped from Day 1 for not being able to handle the bandwidth requirements of iPhone users.  They …

Facebook’s sometime-in-the-future IPO is one of the most anticipated stock offerings of all time, and with good reason: in a short time the company has become the de facto standard social network with over 500 million users and a private-company market capitalization of somewhere over $20 billion.  You can even bet on their IPO date on Bodog if you’d like.
But I think that Facebook going public is a bad idea, and here’s why:  a public Facebook will be under pressure to continually increase earnings, putting it in an escalating conflict …

When I was growing up, running a lemonade stand was easy.  You picked a hot day, made sure you had a good location, priced it right, and provided a quality product.
But in the Web 2.0 world we live in, that just isn’t enough.  Everyone knows that it takes much less capital to start a business then it did 20 years ago, so everyone in your neighborhood is probably thinking about starting a lemonade stand too.  How will you ever be able to beat the competition?  Here is your guide to …

President Obama has signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act into law.
Besides my general opinion on the size and role of government(*), I wasn’t happy about the initial drafts of the law due to its impact on a start-up companies’ ability to raise angel funding.
Under the previous regulations, start-ups raised angel funding from only “accredited investors” to minimize their legal costs, hassle and time to close.  During the initial drafting of this new law, Congress proposed raising the bar to quality as an accredited investor from a …

I own a few website domains – my innovation blog, my name, and several sites for various business ideas – through either GoDaddy.com or Register.com. In the last week, two sales tactics that Register.com use really jumped out at me – and not in a positive way.

In case you haven’t heard, the green revolution is underway. Companies and people are focusing on sustainability, with varying degrees of effort and varying levels of success. I’m nowhere near an expert on sustainability; I would suggest reading my friend’s blog Searching for Sustainability where she focuses on this subject.
What interests me about “going green” is thinking about what it will take to make it successful as a movement.