Skip to main content

Facebook challenges Groupon with deals in five U.S. cities

Social networking giant Facebook has decided to challenge the likes Groupon and Google Offers, launching a new Deals on Facebook program that clues users into significant discounts on products and services. But Facebook isn’t just putting the deals out there: they’re including a significant social component so, if customers like what they see, they can share their experience—and perhaps beef up their own deal—by getting their Facebook friends to participate too.

Facebook Deals (Austin City Limits)
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Facebook’s local deals program is initially available in San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, Austin, and Atlanta, although the company says it hopes to expand to offering to other regions soon. Facebook is working with aDealio, Gilt City, HomeRun, kgb deals, OpenTable, Plum District, PopSugar City, ReachLocal, Tippr, viagogo, and zozi to bring deals to its users.

Recommended Videos

Facebook users can discover deals in a number of ways: users in eligible markets will find they now have a “Deals” tab, and Facebook will happily send users notifications about deals available in their areas. Friends can also share deals with their friends via their news feeds via Facebook’s near-ubiquitous “Like” button.

The success of Groupon has made group-couponing on of the fastest-growing areas of Internet businesses, in part because the deals are often so substantial—it’s not unusual for an online group deal to offer discounts of 50 percent or more on goods or services. Facebook wants to be part of that revenue chain; however, it also wants to distinguish its service from competitors by making the entire experience social, and focusing on products and services that appeal to groups of people. Thus, Facebook deals are more likely to focus on group activities than on personal hygiene products.

In some cases, users will become eligible for a “friend bonus” if they get one or more people in their social networks to take part in a deal. Facebook deals will be of varying duration: some may last as long as a week, but some may only be available for a few days.

Deals on Facebook isn’t the company’s first foray into offering members special deals: the company launched the location-based Check-In Deals late last year that enables users to “check-in” with their phones when visiting a business to see if any discounts or offers were available. Rather than competing with Groupon, Check-in Deals is intended to help Facebook compete with the likes of Foursquare. In both cases, Facebook’s 500 million-strong user base gives the company massive potential in the deal-making arena—and it’s a good bet that anyone using other group-couponing services is already using Facebook.

Geoff Duncan
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…
Nvidia adds DLSS to six more games strengthening its lead in upscaling wars
Nvidia RTX 5080 render

Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology continues to expand rapidly with company bringing support to six additional games. The latest titles to incorporate DLSS features include Steel Seed, The Talos Principle: Reawakened, RuneScape: Dragonwilds, Tempest Rising, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and Commandos: Origins. ​

Steel Seed, a stealth-action adventure title, now includes support for DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation, offering notable performance gains for players using GeForce RTX 50-series GPUs. The Talos Principle: Reawakened, a modern take on the original puzzle game, has also added DLSS Frame Generation and Super Resolution, resulting in smoother frame rates and improved visual quality.

Read more
AMD’s budget-friendly RX 9060 XT might be right around the corner
The RX 7600 XT graphics card on a pink background.

AMD took every ranking of the best graphics cards by storm when it released the RX 9070 XT, but many gamers are anxious for more budget-friendly options. Good news: The RX 9060 XT might not be far away now. On the other hand, another rumored GPU might be slipping through the cracks.

VideoCardz spotted some juicy scoop on Board Channels, a forum that often leaks news from AMD's and Nvidia's partners. Before we dive in, I have to remind you that the following is nothing but a rumor at this stage, so don't get too attached to the date I'm about to share with you. With that said, I do believe that the RX 9060 XT can't be too far off, so there's still plenty to get hyped about.

Read more
Google might have to sell Chrome — and OpenAI wants to buy it
OpenAI press image

It feels like all of the big tech companies practically live in courtrooms lately, but it also feels like not much really comes of it. Decisions get made and unmade again, and it takes a long time for anything to affect consumers. At the moment, Google is in danger of getting dismantled and sold for parts -- and if it really happens, OpenAI has told the judge that it would be interested in buying.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, currently doesn't work with Google at all. Apparently, it wanted to make a deal last year to use Google's search technology with ChatGPT but it didn't work out. Instead, OpenAI is now working on its own search index but it's turning out to be a much more time-consuming project than anticipated.

Read more