Facebook today launched its Deals product as an “alpha” in five markets: San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, Austin and Atlanta. The effort plays up Facebook’s social connectivity, making it simple to “like” and share deals, and promote throughout the site. The launch comes at a time of rapid expansion in the deals space. Google Offers has also just quietly launched a test product in Portland, Oregon; New York City; San Francisco; and Oakland, California.

The launch of a socially driven deals site stands in contrast to some of the newer deal sites, which play down the social elements of deals, as massive email lists and deal exchanges dwarf the role that viral leads have played. But nobody else quite has the clout of Facebook for social.

Deals has been given its own section on the left-hand menu bar, above Groups and Marketplaces, its socially driven classifieds product with Oodle. They’re also tied to Events on the right hand menu (if it is an event). Time and location of the event are put on top. Users can also see which friends have purchased the event. “Deals Near You” is another section.

The deals have clearly been designed to make it easy for businesses to add their own deals, rather than rely on the small inventory of email driven deal sites (i.e., Groupon and LivingSocial). It also encourages deals of different sizes, enabling low priced deals such as coffee discounts for instance.

The whole thing is getting a high-profile launch. When I logged on to Facebook this morning, for instance, deals were promoted as a popup before I had access to the rest of Facebook (I live in San Diego, one of the alpha markets). The pop up let me personalize deals for town and ZIP code. Users can buy deals with their credit card or with “Facebook credits” from check-ins, etc.

In addition to possibly collecting commissions on deals, Facebook appears likely to reap some straight-ahead advertising revenues. In a PDF that businesses can download, Facebook indicates that businesses are “eligible” to advertise sponsored units.

In sum, we’d note that Facebook definitely has some major advantages in this space. Just witness how EventBrite has leveraged Facebook mentions for its event sales. It figures every Facebook mention is worth about $2.50. BIA/Kelsey research shows that 48 percent of SMBs now report some type of interaction with Facebook.

What Facebook doesn’t seem to have are feet on the street and telemarketers. The thousands of salespeople that leaders like Groupon and LivingSocial have on board definitely help move local small businesses out of their inertia. Facebook will go fairly far with self serve. But how far?

The post Facebook Deals Launches in Five Markets appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Group software seems obsolescent in the social revolution. Or is it?

A few weeks ago, John Battelle’s Federated Media acquired Big Tent, the women’s group enabler with 1.3 million users. It apparently plans to target women with very specific advertising.

Oodle, the mega-classifieds platform, has now followed course, buying Grouply, which is described by TechCrunch as “a do-it-yourself social network built on top of Google Groups and Yahoo Groups.” Oodle isn’t disclosing how much it paid, but Grouply had been funded by VCs (including LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman) to the tune of $2.6 million.

So, what can you do with group software? Oodle CEO Craig Donato sees it as a first step to moving social media beyond just friends. He notes that groups bring in different kinds of conversations in a social context, whether people are giving things away, want to talk to other mothers, or share tips on recycling. Among “first degree friends,” there simply isn’t enough liquidity to engage in robust commerce, he hints.

While the social graph is still mostly about friends, the graphs are getting more complicated, adds Donato. “There are lots of circles, and lots of different affinities. The texture to the graph is incredibly important for commerce. The sweet spot is two or three degrees of separation. This might include friends of friends, college classmates or people from your hometown.

The post Oodle Buys Grouply: Moving the Social Graph Beyond (Just) Friends appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Classifieds haven’t been especially enhanced by mobile apps — although it is nice to have them on the go when shopping for a car or a house. But Oodle keeps pushing the envelope with its effort to bring the world of social media to classifieds.

The classified site, which also acts as a platform for clients such as Facebook and Walmart, has now added an iPhone app that CEO Craig Donato says is less about search than it is about making it easier to post items. “We’ve made it really simple. You post an ad, take a picture and you’re done,” he emphasizes. The iPhone isn’t just a phone, he adds. “It is a wireless camera.”

The app also makes it easier to see what your friends (and friends of friends) are looking for via Facebook Connect. Roughly 70 percent to 80 percent of the site’s traffic is via Facebook Connect, says Donato. “Mobile and social are very interrelated.”

Friends who have too many friends (i.e., 2,500 friends) kind of water down the exclusivity on this. Their friends could be just about anybody. But it still interesting. “Classifieds exist as a second degree of connectiveness,” says Donato. “The amount of want ads is very high,” especially for items such as tickets.

Donato notes that other efforts at Oodle have been moving along, including its Oodle Pro reputation management and classifieds placement program, which has just gotten its 1,000th customer. “People [especially Realtors] use Pro to get leads and to focus on taking advantage of other social features.”

The post Oodle’s iPhone App: Mostly About the Camera appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Trulia, which is ranked a Top 7 real estate site by comScore, has followed the lead of Realtor.com and Zillow and added rentals to its site. The rentals section features all Trulia’s functionality, such as neighborhood information, mapping and ratings information, and filters for relevant searches such as “pets allowed.”

The site also offers “search on the go.” Roughly 10 percent of Trulia’s usage now comes from mobile devices. Trulia’s mobile Web site is compatible with the iPhone, BlackBerry and Android platforms.

Trulia rentals covers the gamut from multifamily to houses. Listings will come from Independent Listings Services, as well as from brokerages and landlords. There are “millions” of units on the site at launch, with more than 25,000 in New York City.

One advantage of Trulia rentals, per CEO Pete Flint, is Trulia’s ability to assume hosting duties for listers including the hosting of contact info, images of units and floor plans, and other information. That separates Trulia from some of the rentals aggregators in the market, such as Oodle, he says.

Flint notes that 30 percent of the site’s visitors are typically looking to either rent or buy. The market trends are “absolutely in favor of renting,” he says. Overall, rentals “are as large as the ‘for sale’ business.”

Separately, in an interview with BusinessWeek, Flint deflected rumors that Google has been looking into buying the company. Trulia uses many of Google’s features and it would seem to be a nice fit. But Flint told BusinessWeek that the real estate market isn’t strong enough to appreciate the site’s full value this year.

As an alternative, the company is looking for an outside investor that would let employees and owners cash in their shares without waiting for an initial public offering, similar to Facebook’s arrangement with Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian company, and Yelp’s arrangement with Elevation Partners.

The post Trulia Branches Out Into Rentals appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.