Foursquare joins daily-deals market
The location-based social network has signed deals with LivingSocial, AT&T, and other companies to offer a daily-deals service.
Foursquare has created a daily-deals program that relies upon services that consumers are already using.
The location-based social network that allows people to "check in" at different locations, has formed agreements with LivingSocial, AT&T, and fashion-focused Gilt Groupe, among others, to deliver the deals. According to the company, the daily deals are an expansion of its current Specials program, which allows merchants to advertise deals to the social platform's users.
Foursquare's new offering will help people find deals around their current location. The deals Foursquare offers will be tailored to the person based on what the social network calculates the individual may like best. Foursquare will also inform people why a deal might be right them, such as "if two of your friends have been" to a specific location.
According to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on Foursquare's new feature last night, the social network's partnership with daily-deals providers seems to be quite straightforward: LivingSocial and the rest do all the legwork in securing daily deals to offer users, and Foursquare offers those deals on its service. The companies will then share a cut of the revenue, though that split has not been divulged.
Conspicuously missing from Foursquare's partnerships is Groupon, the leader in the daily-deals market. AllThingsD reported earlier this year that Foursquare and Groupon were nearing an agreement that would see the daily deals offered to Foursquare users. So far, that partnership hasn't materialized.
Whether it will materialize remains to be seen. Groupon last month rolled out a service, called Groupon Now, that allows people to input their location and find deals around them. Perhaps most importantly, the service is available in Groupon's iPhone and Android apps, in addition to the Groupon Now site.
With that functionality, it would seem that the mobile-reliant Foursquare and Groupon have become competitors.
Foursquare, which recently announced that it has 10 million users, said that it will roll out its daily deals this week.