The explosive growth, rapid revenue generation and HUGE business valuations have definitely attracted a lot of attention to some relatively new group buying sites. 

While the concept itself is certainly not new, the buzz around the growth potential is new, and a lot of that can be traced to the use of social media in these business models.  In some ways, these are really the first sites tied into social media that are generating significant direct response revenue.  Heck, Groupon is less than 2 years old and has already raised more money with a higher valuation and will gross more than almost every other social media site except for perhaps Facebook.

On the surface, these sites seem ridiculously simple to start, operate and grow but as we all know, still waters can run deep and there really is a lot to learn about these sites.  The goal of this post is to begin to share a large group of links that dig into some of the many facets of this business model, as well as Groupon, the leading company in this space.