Check in to Facebook Deals
Taking on 'social buying' coupon sites Groupon and LivingSocial, Facebook is now expanding its Deals which will now focus on offering discounts for group activities. The old Facebook Deals announced in November seems to be renamed as Check-In Deals and is currently available in five pilot cities in the US, including Atlanta, Dallas, Austin, San Diego and San Francisco.
According to NYT, Facebook users can now receive and share Deals through email or NewsFeed, and also display it to their friends. "It will be easy to share deals with friends, see when a friend buys something and find offers that your friends are interested in," said Emily White, Facebook's director for local. In some cases, you can even get a "friend bonus" - an additional discount - if at least one other person in your social network buys a deal.
"Leveraging social tools and direct sharing among friends will be a key to success for daily deal companies" going forward, AP quoted Lou Kerner, social media analyst at Wedbush as saying.
Ideal for group booking, these Deals can be purchased using Facebook credits, which until now has been used only to buy virtual goods inside social games and order movie rentals. White also noted that "it is first time it has been used to purchase a voucher that is redeemable for real goods."
However, Facebook is not the only one to truly integrate social networking and online couponing. Social commerce and group buying has become increasingly popular these days.
Google recently launched a public beta of its Offers service in Oregon, while Amazon invested $175 million in Living Social in December, and Foursquare reportedly expanded its deals businesses in March. For its expansion of Deals, Facebook has partnered with other deals services such as OpenTable, PopSugarCity and Zozi.
