Link: How Facebook Can Beat Groupon: By Making Deals Social

Facebook is planning to roll out a new version of its Groupon-style Deals feature over the next few weeks, starting with a number of cities such as Atlanta, Dallas and San Diego, according to the company’s director of local. Not surprisingly, the new version of these digital coupons plays on the social nature of Facebook and its ability to influence a user’s social graph. While the social network may be late to this particular party, doing that is going to focus attention on one big hole in the Groupon model: namely, the fact that it isn’t really social.