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Andrew Mason isn’t leaving Groupon empty handed... One thing is crystal clear already: Mason has a tidy nest egg — roughly $260 million — to spend on whatever tropical island he may hit to nurse his wounds, or to splurge on the fat camp he referenced in a letter to employees.

Groupon lost more than a fifth of its value in early trading after reporting a quarterly loss late Wednesday that fueled criticism of the daily-deals site's aggressive growth strategy.

Groupon Inc reported a quarterly net loss Wednesday as the largest daily deal company recorded higher taxes overseas.

The last time Mark Stella went to the dentist he didn't need an insurance card. Instead, he pulled out a Groupon. Stella, a small business owner, canceled his health insurance plan more than three years ago when his premium rose to more than $400 a month.

Daily deal distributor LivingSocial doled out $142.9 million in equity as part of its agreement to buy South Korea-based discount site TicketMonster, according to a source familiar with the purchase. The District-based company, which declared the transaction in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday, has been on a buying binge in recent months as it looks to expand its global footprint through the acquisition of daily deal Web sites in overseas markets.

I wrote here at Forbes in May about the dangerous trend of unaudited numbers being used by companies, media, and investors to evaluate the potential of these IPOs... As long as they get their return before the gig is up, who cares what the real story is?

On the 25th of April Facebook's discount shopping platform Facebook Deals was unveiled and I belligerently declared Groupon as good as toast. Today Facebook announced that it will soon shutter its Facebook Deals product.

Groupon was forced to restate fourth quarter earnings, sending its stock down 6% in after-hours trading. This surprised me as much as my $2 investment in the Mega Millions jackpot not paying off.

Daily deals site Groupon Inc filed for an initial public offering, hoping to capitalize on the biggest investor stampede into Web start-ups since the dotcom bubble burst a decade ago.