Google offered up a whopping $6 billion in an effort to acquire local deal vender Groupon last year, but the Internet giant was rebuffed. $6 billion is quite a healthy amount of scratch, but Groupon apparently thought it could take over the world on its own. Of course the massively successful coupon merchant must have known at that time — just as the rest of the world knew — that Google would certainly not leave well enough alone. Enter “Google Offers.” The aptly named service will be Google’s attempt to eat Groupon’s lunch, offering great local deals on, well, lunch — among other things. Restaurant deals, shopping deals and other local deals will be emailed to users each day, and the service will be packed full of opportunities to notify nearby friends of great deals via Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz and so on. Hit the break for a screen shot of a Google Offers page to see what we have to look forward to, as well as a fact sheet Google is sending to local businesses in an effort to get them on board.
