The rumour a while back was that Google was going to buy the daily deals site Groupon. For whatever reason that never happened so Google decided to set up their own rival daily deal site, and now Google Offers is just about ready to use.
The stunning success of Groupon has made it one of the fastest growing companies ever and has brought a slew of similar sites to the internet, with Google the latest to get in on the act.
We first heard about Google Offers at the start of the year and now it has moved into the beta testing phase. It is kicking off in Portland (we think that it is the Oregon one rather than the Dorset version) followed by New York and San Francisco.
The beta page is located at http://www.google.com/offers and on here we already being promised whacking discounts of 50% or more. For this first phase you need to select your location from those US cities mentioned, and the rest of us will need to wait a bit longer before we get a chance to register properly.
Not that there is much that the good burghers of Portland etc can do right now, as once the heady thrill of signing up is over with that is about it so far. The actual offers will come later, according to the launch day tweet from Chris Messina at Google.
Once things are up and running registered users can expect to have a daily email fired off to them with details of the best current deals in their area.
Do you reckon you will give Google Offers a try once it reaches your city?
I think it would be easy ti rely on Google's offer.