14 DAY TRIAL // Google's Groupon competitor, Offers is now live in several cities in the US. The service is not yet fully operational, but users can sign up to receive regular emails alerting them of special deals in their region.
There aren't that many details on how exactly Google Offers will work or what it's doing to differentiate itself from Groupon and its clones.
It's also unclear how this will fit in with the rest of Google services focused on location and small businesses.
"Today we launched a marketing campaign inviting Portlanders to sign up for a test of Google Offers — to get great deals delivered right to their inboxes. Offers is part of an ongoing effort at Google to make new services that give consumers great deals while helping connect businesses with customers in new ways," Google said in a statement.
The service is only available in a few cities in the US, Portland, New York, San Francisco and Oakland. Users there can sign up for the newsletter, but there's no word on when the actual offers start coming.
Google seems to be saying that Portland, Oregon will be the first place where the service starts working, hardly surprising since Google has been using it to pioneer all manner of location-based services, from Hotpot to NFC tags.
Google hasn't made any big announcements yet, but there is an introduction video that's just popped up on YouTube. The video doesn't reveal much, except perhaps that Googlers are now showcasing their musical talents in promo clips, but it does tell watchers to expect something "extraordinary."
There's no details about when the service will actually go live and start sending subscribers offers. This likely depends on how many people Google gets to sign up for the new service and how it manages to entice local businesses which have a lot of daily-deals sites to choose from.