Daily

It turned down a $6 billion acquisition offer. It wants a $25 billion initial public offering. It more or less created a breed of advertising that now every company wants into. It's grown faster than just about any company, ever. But according to multiple signals across the Web, things may be afoul at Groupon.

The latest is a chart released by Yipit, a start-up that aggregates cities' daily-deal offerings--more than 400 sites' worth--into a customizable digest that highlights individual users' preferences. Yipit said in a blog post today that it found a 32 percent decline in Groupon revenue per … Read more

Senior editor Donald Bell stops by, Motorola Xoom in tow, to give us a hands-on the first Honeycomb tablet. Once we've had our fill, we take a look beyond Honeycomb at the next generation OS for Android phones. Also, a pair of apps may be able to save your lost phone and save you from a speeding ticket on this week's edition of Android Atlas Weekly.

Motorola Xoom review http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/motorola-xoom-tablet/4505-3126_7-34468548.html?tag=mncol;txt … Read more

The daily-deals broker Groupon is reportedly getting ready to launch operations in China, which would help expand its reach in Asia.

In Beijing recently, a company that operates the site Gaopeng.com was conducting interviews in an office with a Groupon sign on display, according to a Wall Street Journal story today. Gaopeng.com is "listed as registered by someone at Internet giant Tencent Holdings of Shenzen, China. " Tencent is one of the stakeholders in Digital Sky Technologies, an investor in Groupon.

The Journal report also said openings for Groupon staff positions have been posted recently on Chinese … Read more

This is a well-thought-out move: Low-cost air carrier Virgin America, which has attempted to court passengers with a tech-savvy offering since its 2007 launch, announced today its initial service from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. To drum up online chatter, it partnered with Chicago's company of the moment--Groupon.

Groupon users can purchase $77 worth of Virgin America credit for $7 on the massive group-buying site, with the caveat that it can only be used on the airline's new Chicago routes. Given the amount of positive buzz for a brand that can … Read more

Few companies have changed the e-commerce world in the recent past as much as Groupon, a local-deals broker that has gotten the nation hooked on half-price massages, discounted restaurant bills, and packages offering rock-climbing and yoga combos (though, ideally, not at the same time). It's earned rave reviews for customer service, thanks in part to its hiring of underemployed comedians as copywriters and service reps.

Yet Groupon has taken a beating in the past few weeks--not in terms of traffic, and not from the rise of any of its several dozen smaller competitors--but just because of a few bonehead … Read more

It's a minor badge of honor to say that you were a fan of actor James Franco back in the day: He starred on the late-'90s high school drama "Freaks and Geeks" alongside fellow then-unknowns Seth Rogen and Jason Segel, and then sort of disappeared for a few years when the show was canceled after one season. (But he was so cute.)

Now the guy is everywhere: hosting the Oscars this month while up for a Best Actor award for "127 Hours," trying his hand at directing and screenwriting, and simultaneously participating in graduate … Read more

Two days ago Rupert Murdoch announced The Daily, News Corp.'s latest publication built for the iPad platform, and we've been waiting all week to get its tech editor, Peter Ha, in the studio to tell us about the new pricing model and how it'll shape the future of online publishing. Lucky for us, today is that day, but the show starts off with a bit of controversy. Tune in to hear Jeff's fumble!

But Peter's not here to talk about the Korean flag or tattoos, he joins us today to chat about The Daily. The magazine/book/newspaper, or whatever you want to call it, is fielding plenty of comparisons to free news outlets like The New York Times and The Huffington Post that also have their own iPad apps, or even Flipboard, another visually interactive app for the tablet platform.

But from what Peter tells us, The Daily is a different kind of user experience in that it delivers editorial content made specifically for the iPad, whereas those other apps simply pull in RSS-feed versions of their Web-based counterparts.

For 99 cents a week or $39.99 a year, The Daily uses a set of templates to deliver content more in line with a newspaper as a backseat user experience, as opposed to the personalized, curated set of blogs you choose for Flipboard or other "mobile news readers."

The Daily also provides content interactively by way of a floating carousel of categories with 360-degree high-resolution photos, audio clips, and video. Whether or not that justifies the subscription fee is up to the user, although we're all impressed by (and a little pensive about) the ability to record and post audio comments in addition to text.

Stay tuned for the second half where we examine the plausibility of The Daily coming to the fragmented Android Market. Like it or hate it, Android is certainly the default operating system for consumers to turn to after iOS, but Wilson doesn't believe that Android users will accept the idea of paying for apps anytime soon. On the other hand, the guy can barely predict his plans for this weekend, so don't take his words too seriously.

As usual, we have a blast riffing back and forth with Peter Ha, who's not only a hilarious friend of the show but also offers valuable insight into the mobile publishing industry, the ongoing mobile OS wars, and hopefully Rupert Murdoch's to-do list. Check out today's show and let us know what you think about The Daily! Give us a call at 1-866-404-CNET and leave us a voice mail, or e-mail us at the404(at)cnet(dot)com.

Sony's PRS-950 Daily Edition is the company's current flagship e-reader, and it possesses one feature that the step-down siblings (the Reader Touch Edition PRS-650 and the Reader Pocket Edition PRS-350) in the 2010-2011 product line lack: wireless connectivity in the form of both 3G and Wi-Fi.

But that wireless connectivity comes at a price. This e-ink model carries a list price of $300, and though we've seen it discounted for less at times, it's still well over $100 more than both the 3G ($189) and Wi-Fi ($139) versions of the Amazon Kindle, as well as the … Read more

Curious about Rupert Murdoch's heavily hyped iPad publication but not in possession of said tablet? Well, thanks to an LA-based computer programmer and journalist, you can check out The Daily in its entirety on your laptop, Netbook, or PC--though you'll miss out on the tablet-specific bells and whistles.

Launched with much fanfare yesterday, the specially designed, subscription-only, multimedia "newspaper" has media observers wondering if it will turn out to be a legitimate glimpse of publishing's future or nothing more than an interesting experiment.

After the postlaunch free trial of two weeks, the pub--which is viewable … Read more