In a move to use its over 500 million members to capitalise on the surging online-deal market, social networking site Facebook is planning to test a Groupon-inspired service that provides discount offers.
The company said the San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, Atlanta, and Austin, Texas, will be the initial places where the service will be offered, according to Bloomberg.
As part of Facebook’s existing Deals programme, the new feature will enable the social media site’s staff to work with businesses to spotlight deals and encourage users to share them with friends.
Users will be able to see discount offers from partner services, including ReachLocal, KGB Deals, HomeRun.com, PopSugar City, Gilt City, Tippr, Plum District and Zozi with the new Facebook’s programme.
According to the company, "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."
A pressure is expected on Groupon and LivingSocial with the foray of Facebook into the deals market.
Bloomberg quoted a BIA/Kelsey, a Chantilly, Virginia-based consulting firm as saying that daily-deal services will generate $3.93bn by 2015, up from $873m last year.
The effort by Facebook to enter into the deal market follows a plan by Warner Bros. last week to let the social site’s members watch the studio’s films.
Skype Technologies and Facebook are in talks to offer Web video calls to social networking giant’s users, Bloomberg quoted sources familiar to the discussion.
