I think the jokes with negative votes should increasingly loose points with time to avoid it losing a chance right after submission. I've been working on a similar upvote/downvote system and think that way will work more efficiently.
"the average student spends $2,600/year on beer" Are you kidding me? What are these average students drinking? Cheap cases are at most $20 which is 130 cases or 3900 beers a year. Thats beside the $4,000 on entertainment. Absurd calculations.
What about all the people living above their means with the mortgages they couldn't afford. Didn't they play a part? Should they go to jail too? Plus what they did was unethical, not illegal, and therefore not punishable through jail-time...
I was really impressed by Watson. His first choice was the daily double though, so I think he hacked it, haha.
It seemed like for the answers it was very confident on it could react faster than Brad and Ken. It always was the first to buzz in, and jumped to a huge lead. I don't know if that is true, but its pure reaction time may be its winning factor.
I think a smaller version is a good idea. Its funny how new/more advanced cellphones used to mean smaller, thinner and sleeker, but now with smart-phones they are increasing in size again. The Droid X is freakin' huge! The iphone is still a reasonable size, but some of these new phones are just too big for my liking (ended up getting the incredible). Plus cheaper never hurt...
Groupon may be the strongest brand, best venture backing, and most revenue compared to all the clones, but it certainly could become worthless practically overnight. Easily replicable as seen by many others, staying power is questionable as mentioned.
I'd have trouble sleeping at night if I were Andrew Mason. Especially hearing the company that I turned down 6 bil from was joining the market. Post ipo his wealth will pretty much always be tied to groupons success.