How does it work? We were given a walkthrough at Facebook's mobile event at its Palo Alto, headquarters, where the company also introduced its single sign-in process and enhancements to its location API.
Facebook's new Deals program is tied closely to its mobile application. "Obviously, mobile is huge, location is huge," Erick Tseng, Facebook's mobile chief said in an interview following the press conference.
Facebook employees demonstrated the new Deals on an iPhone, although the service should be available on both Android and iOS devices.
When a user checks in to Facebook, he or she can look for a list of "nearby places," some of which may or may not have a yellow price tag or sticky to the right of them. That's a deal, and you can click on it to open it up. There are four kinds of deals: individual deals, loyalty deals, friend deals, and charity deals. There's even a UI that shows "punches" on a virtual card for loyalty deals, Facebook says, with discounts for those users who bring new friends and customers.
The employee who demonstrated the Deals application to me (she asked not to be named) said that she wasn't sure if there will be other colors of icons for other types of deals, to easily distinguish between them.
Businesses can access the Deal workflow on just a single page, Facebook said. The business can choose what kind of deal to set up, then add up to two lines of description text describing the deal.
Facebook's New Facebook Deals
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