Google Offers
In my opinion, if you are familiar with Groupon, you are familiar with Google Offers. At least this is the feeling I get from the limited information currently available on the beta version of Google Offers. A few items that are uncharacteristic of Google’s usual level of support are that Google will write the content for your offer, they will help you create an ‘attractive offer,’ and they may even send a photographer out to your business to take some photos of your business.
Google mentions that they will highlight your offer on their ‘main site,’ so if they are putting the offer on Google.com or even a geotargeted version of Google.com, that would be amazing and could mean tons of potential traffic and buyers for a business. Depending on how the Google Offers program is rolled out (of which Austin is one of the soon to be beta cities), I wonder how this will influence different businesses to use offer type text/ landing pages in their paid search marketing.
More info can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQFDRaKvcvQ&feature=player_embedded
https://www.google.com/offers/business/google-offers-fact-sheet.pdf
Also check out Google Latitude, which allows you to unlock offers in the Austin area: