While it’s true Groupon copycats have been popping up all over the place, AT&T and a novel start-up called thruSocial are the newest players to throw down with the online coupon giant. According to Mashable‘s Todd Wasserman, AT&T is preregistering coupon lovers in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth for a service that will send daily deals to consumers via its yp.com. The telecom giant also is offering $10 off a first deal for people in those cities who sign up through May 22.
Even more interesting might be Courtney Fielding’s story in GigaOM in which she writes about thruSocial, a new “self-serve” advertising and deals platform in which businesses can create their own promotions, which thruSocial then distributes to social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and thrupons.com, its own deals site. ThruSocial, which was created by one of the earliest engineers to work for Facebook, says it’s the most practical and cheapest option for SMBs trying to garner more business with online advertising.
Read more about AT&T’s new daily deal offering at Mashable. To read more about thruSocial, visit GigaOM.
