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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.

Struggling online deals pioneer Groupon has ousted its quirky founder and CEO Andrew Mason amid worries that people are tiring of the myriad of online restaurant, spa and Botox deals that Groupon built its business on.

Let's get one thing straight: It wasn't Andrew Mason's personality that got him fired as CEO of Groupon today. If the local discounts service were doing well -- and not taking one body blow after another from a Wall Street disappointed with its results and skeptical of its promise -- he would have a job tomorrow morning, and for a long time to come. Mason's penchant for antic behavior that highlighted his immaturity and called into question his seriousness as a leader didn't cause that.

Groupon and its compatriots in the much-hyped daily deals business were supposed to change the very nature of small-business advertising. Instead, it is the daily deal vendors that are racing to change as evidence mounts that their business model is fundamentally flawed.

Another day, another low for Groupon's stock. The online deals company issued a lackluster quarterly report after the market closed on Monday. Since Tuesday, the stock has hit a new low every day. It fell another 25 cents, or 5 percent, to close Friday at $4.75. Earlier in the day, it hit $4.51. That's down more than three-quarters of its initial public offering price of $20 in November.

In groups of four, the soon-to-be graduates of LivingSocial’s inaugural Hungry Academy stepped in front of their peers last week to present their capstone projects: a fully functional Web site built to help school teachers raise money for classroom projects.

Groupon has acquired Hyperpublic, snapping up the two-year-old location-based technology start-up amid a growth spurt at the daily deals service.

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.

Groupon Inc sold more than 650,000 holiday deals between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, an increase of 500 percent compared with last year, Chief Executive Officer Andrew Mason said in a blog post on Wednesday.

Many retailers are enjoying a Thanksgiving shopping spree lift from investors, but not Groupon. Its shares closed today down nine percent, settling at $15.24 after bouncing off a new low of $14.85. That’s less than half the $31.14 that some investors paid at the stock’s high point, just after it went public in early November. More recently, it has been trading in the low to mid-$20s.