Google to Beef Up Offers, Beat Groupon?

Google spent $114 million on Daily Deals, a European site that looks a lot like Groupon. After rebuffing Google's purchase offer of $6 billion earlier this year, Groupon is suing former managers who have left for the search giant. Small businesses should care because Google may be using this real and intellectual capital to build a better version of Groupon.

If you look at what , it goes a little beyond , including a possible photo shoot of your location and direct integration with Google Places. That photo shoot isn't just the , but an internal peej inside your location. Google doesn't provide many details of how this can happen apart from a mention on its for businesses page, but hopefully they'll expand on it.

Google stepped up the Daily Deals game further today by with Rearden Commerce, whose merchant platform Deem offers lead generation and marketing analytics for merchants. With Groupon, the experience is customer-centric, sometimes to the detriment of the merchant. It looks like Google is trying to balance the relationship by offering merchants an improved experience with tools like demographics analysis that Groupon isn't providing--yet.

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