Hell hath no fury like a Google scorned. The spurned web titan is thumbing its nose at Groupon, the daily deals site that rejected Google's $6 billion dollar offer and recently reached a $15 billion valuation.
Now, Mashable reports that Google is planning to launch their own daily deals site called Google Offers. Google offered them the following statement:
Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program. This initiative is part of an ongoing effort at Google to make new products, such as the recent Offer Ads beta, that connect businesses with customers in new ways. We do not have more details to share at this time, but will keep you posted.
Google Offers will function very much like Groupon, as well as its competitor LivingSocial. Users will receive daily emails with local deals, which carry some preset time limit. Once the deal reaches the minimum number of customers, all the users will receive the deal.
Considering Google already controls the Internet's largest ad network, the move into daily deals marketing and reach-out is extremely intuitive, allowing Google to expand past advertising revenue. And for prognosticators, Google exec Marissa Mayer's recent move to oversee location and local services was a good sign Google hadn't given up on Groupon's groove.
The business model leaked in the fact sheet is pretty much the same as Groupon's: helping connect local shops and restaurants with customers through the power of the coupon. It's also the same model the big flock of Groupon-copies already littering the web follow. Though there is some question as to whether Google will have the ability to distinguish themselves from the crowd, they clearly have the benefits of huge amounts of money and traffic as well as a greater number of pre-existing ad relationships, to help them swipe away any pesky startup barnacles clinging to their corporate belly.