Esto es una guerra de conquista, no hay bandera que se respete.
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Facebook comenzara a probar un servicio que proveera descuentos a mas de 500 millones de miembros, jugada que significa hacerle la competencia a Groupon Inc.
El nuevo servicio sera probado en Dallas, Austin, Atlanta, San Francisco y San Diego.
Facebook Takes Aim at Groupon With Deals Service
By SCOTT MORRISON
Facebook Inc. will soon start testing a service to provide local discounts to its more than 500 million members, a move that will thrust the social network into direct competition with daily deals provider Groupon Inc.
The new service will be tested in Dallas, Austin, Atlanta, San Francisco and San Diego, and will expand upon Facebook's existing service that offers deals to members when they use Facebook Places to check into a specific location, the company said.
Users will be able locate deals on a special page listing all local promotions running at any given time. Users will be able to find a link to the deals page on the left side of their home page.
Facebook said the new service will let people buy deals on Facebook and share them with their friends. "Local businesses will be able to sign up to use this feature soon and people will be able to find deals in the coming weeks," the company said in statement.
The push into social deals could step up pressure Groupon and rival LivingSocial, which lead the rapidly growing market but only have a small percentage of Facebook's users.
Facebook said its sales team will soon start selling deals to local merchants. It also will team up with eight partners, including Gilt City, Tippr, KGB Deals and Zozi, to aggregate their deals on Facebook.
Facebook declined to say whether it will require members to use the company's virtual currency, Facebook Credits, to purchase deals. The Palo Alto, Calif., social network has been pushing the use of Facebook Credits for the purchase of digital goods in blacklisted_site, for which it takes a 30% cut of revenue.
Requiring users to buy daily deals with Credits would push the virtual currency beyond the digital realm and drive adoption among a much broader base of users.
Facebook spokeswoman Annie Ta declined to rule out the possibility that deal buyers would be required to use Facebook Credits, saying the company was exploring different ways to purchase deals.
Write to Scott Morrison at
scott.morrison@dowjones.com