Google expands online deals to five more cities

Google expanded its local bargains program to five more cities Wednesday in a challenge to online deals giants Groupon and LivingSocial.

Google said it had begun offering the deals from local businesses in Austin, Texas, Boston, Denver, Seattle, and the nation's capital, Washington.

Google launched a test of the service called Google Offers in Portland, Oregon, in June and expanded it to San Francisco and New York a month later.

Google's offers on Wednesday included $10 dollars worth of food and drink for $5 at a Mexican restaurant in Austin and $20 dollars worth of merchandise for $5 at the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver.

Google's expansion of Google Offers comes less than two weeks after social network titan Facebook announced that it was ending a similar Facebook Deals program launched in April.

Facebook began testing deals in April in five US cities -- Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego, and San Francisco -- in a bid to expand its revenue stream beyond advertising and carve out a niche in the growing online bargain space.

Chicago-based Groupon has enjoyed a spectacular rise since its founding in 2008 and rejected a reported $6 billion takeover offer from Google last year.

Groupon announced plans in June to go public but The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that it was re-evaluating the plans because of the volatility in the stock market.

(c) 2011 AFP