Google Offers

Google Offers

As Google has learned, there are serious downsides to being a giant in Silicon Valley. People start questioning whether you’ve lost entrepreneurial zing. That three-head bossstructure looks more like a lodestone than a friendly power sharing. Regulators won’t leave you alone.
But there are serious advantages to being big, too.
Mashable broke the news that Google isplanning to launch a service similar to Groupon, the deals-of-the-day website that recently spurned a $6 billion takeover offer from Google. Apparently revenge is a dish best served quickly.
Google Offers, Mashable reports, is being pitched as a “new product to help potential customers and clientele find great deals in their area through a daily email.” Sound familiar? Yeah, that’s what Groupon does, too.
As Deal Journal has previously noted, Google executive Marissa Mayer hinted in recent weeks that Google was planning its own version of Groupon. Here’s what she said to MediaBistro:
“When you look at our overall suite of services, especially around our advertising, we already have some things that are like this….We’re looking at how can we take this technology and put it to use, especially in the location space.”
Google isn’t perfect, of course. It has lagged in social media despite multiple efforts — (Orkut anyone?) But two advantages Google has are money, and the gravitas with local merchants to pull off a Groupon killer. If you’re a Greek restaurant in Boise, whose phone call are you going to return first: a sales representative from Groupon, or LivingSocial, or some other startup you haven’t heard of? Or Google?

Google Offers