I can't say that I ever thought there was anything novel about this concept that distinguished it from other pay-per-action websites which allow buyers to sort by price. Success or failure was going to be determined by how well the "concept" was executed. After having observed the site and done quite a bit of comparison shopping, I have come to the conclusion that, generally speaking, the jellyfish.com post-rebate prices are not lower than those offered by major retail websites. Add to that the customer's wait for the cash rebate and the site's clunky search and browse functionality and I think we can see why jellyfish has not become a major player in this arena. In all honesty, jellyfish.com is not even a good stop to make when doing comparison web shopping because of the average price points and compromised comparability due to the cash rebate waiting period. At the end of the day, jellyfish.com is another marketing gimmick that lacks substance.

Questions:

Anything to stop someone like Amazon.com, which already has deep relationships with its participants from embracing and extending this model? Anything at all?

Any reason why a small independent merchant would want to join Jellyfish, besides reaching a group of consumers - which the web enables *any* merchant to do - without intermediaries?

Mark, I don't know why I always let myself get sucked into these things, but here's my last word on this.

You have absolutely no substantiation for your claim that I was "manipulated." My interest in what Jellyfish is doing predates my ever having heard of them:

Imagine a Robin-Hood-like application that could somehow take a percentage of the revenue that we generate through our attention and redistribute it to us. Imagine if Google had to pay YOU for the attention that you give each AdWords advertiser when you click.

If you take the time to read the conversation on this post (which flourished despite your efforts to sabatoge) you'll notice a few things. First, you're an army of one on this issue. Second, and more importantly, this post has served as a forum where Jellyfish's model has been openly challenged and debated. Rather than addressing the substance of what I or anyone else has said about Jellyfish, all you have done is make baseless accusations.

Your use of words like "vanity" and "manipulation" (suggesting that I'm sufficiently weak-minded and attention-hungry to be manipulated by cheap PR tactics) are a personal attack, as much as you want to spin it otherwise.

Has it ever occurred to you that there's a lot of excitement around Jellyfish because what they are doing is acutally really SMART? This view has plenty of support, from Pete Cashmore to WSJ to Umair Haque to InformationWeek -- do you think they are all "patsies" -- a conspiracy, perhaps?

I laid out a clear argument in this post as to why I think what Jellyfish is doing is smart and potentially game changing. Some people stepped forward above to disagree and the open debate that resulted is, to me, what blogging is all about.

If you'd read this blog, you know that I have often been pessimistic of late on business models and innovations. Jellyfish genuinely got me excited, by their ideas as much as their beta. Will they succeed? Who knows?! But the way they are thinking is definitely on the path to the "next Google," something I've been writing about ever since I started this blog. I stand by my statement that a failure to understand what Jellyfish is aiming at is a failure of imagination -- by saying that, I make no claim that they are guaranteed to hit that target. It's the target that fundamentally interests me, and that's what I was trying to explain in this post.

I get approached multiple times a day with invitations to have inside looks at new products, and if I were as easily manipulated as you suggest, this blog would be nothing but posts about companies. But the substance of my analysis of what Jellyfish is doing speaks for itself, and I feel no need to defend it or do anything differently in the future, i.e. I won't be manipulated by you or anyone else using cheap ad hominem attacks.

The reason I accused you of having an agenda is that I don't see you making the rounds to other blogs who have written positively about Jellyfish -- the vitriol in your attack felt personal, which leaves your motive beyond my comprehension. All I could do was speculate.

In any case, if you don't like what you read here, there are 45 million other blogs for you to choose from. It's a free and open media world, and that's a beautiful thing.

You’re leaving out of this equation the reallocation of advertising/marketing dollars — there is a big pot of money most companies have to drive sales, which are factored into the cost per sale. Paying for attention, i.e. advertising, and competing on price through discounting, have traditionally been managed separately — with Jellyfish, in theory, they can now be managed together.

Indeed. With Jellyfish. It's an intermediary play like eBay and Amazon.

I can't help but get flashbacks to an intranet engine I built so that purchasers could contract with part suppliers who were bidding the lowest prices back in 1997.

I don't see merchants raising prices. I see a race to the bottom in order to reach the most customers.

"It still means the person who can accept and is willing to accept the lowest margin wins"

Yes. Great for consumers. Just like Wal-Mart.

If low, low prices for consumers and market share for merchants is the goal - well this is one way to make that happen it would seem.

This is very, very clever.

Scott, I have no agenda, other than to point out that bloggers can be manipulated to provide PR for smart marketers.

Rather than answering my question, you are attacking the messenger again. This time there's the cute reversal: the implication that I may be a shill for a Jellyfish competitor, complete with a demand for full disclosure! No, I don't own any stock in any of Jellyfish's competitors. Then there's the somewhat vain idea that I have sour grapes because Crisscross has not been mentioned in your blog. I don't come here to get PR. You readership is small, and it's not my target audience.

In any case, there is no need to discuss the issue further here. I hope that next time you get inside information that you consider the implications -- there's enough hype on the web already.