I’m sure you recall when Groupon turned down a reported $6 billion offer from Google a few months back. Many (not all) thought Groupon was crazy to turn it down, considering how many daily deal/offers sites have been coming out of the woodwork, and how easy such a concept is to replicate.
Google made no secret of the fact that it would be aggressively pursuing this market, after Groupon declined the offer. Google’s Marissa Mayer pointed out that they already had some Groupon-like products, but that didn’t include a Groupon clone, per se. That is until word came out about Google Offers in early February, when Mashable obtained an official fact sheet about the product. This week, Google officially announced the beta version of it with a few select cities (Portland, NYC, Oakland, and San Francisco).
