Yahoo! Local Offers Arrives - Worth a Look

Yahoo! has seen the future - and it's local. 

The Web technology and content company announced the launch of Local Offers this week, a program (which is still in beta) in which Yahoo! has partnered with online and offline providers to build a repository of local offers on the Web. Sound appealing? Keep reading.

"The local landscape is exploding with new sources of content and advertising, and consumers want these experiences personalized just for them. Yahoo! is taking the complexity out of finding the great local deals that are most relevant to their interests and needs," said Matt Idema, vice president, Yahoo! Local. "With more than 180 million unique visitors1 to Yahoo!'s sites in the U.S., we are uniquely positioned to deliver our local-offer partners the massive scale and targeting needed to reach engaged audiences, grow their businesses, and drive foot traffic to local merchants." 

Yahoo! launched the Local Offers program with more than a dozen partners including Groupon, LivingSocial, Gilt City, BloomSpot, BuyWithMe, DealOn, Zozi, CrowdSavings, Lifebooker, FreshGuide, Scoop St, Goldstar, HomeRun, Tippr, Coupons.com, and Valpak. 

"Consumers are inundated with offers, both online and off. I think a service that aggregates several different special deals sources will give consumers great deals and make the marketplace much more transparent," said Karsten Weide, research vice president, Digital Media & Entertainment, at IDC. "For partners in such a service, the audience reach of a large partner will give them a lot of much needed distribution. 

Yahoo!'s Local Offers program is open to all "deal" providers, including local "deal of the day" partners and traditional direct-marketing partners.

So how can you get involved with Local Offers which is still in private beta? Tippr.com might be one option to consider. The group buying site is participating in the Local Offers program and its daily deals be available to Yahoo's audience, but sites using PoweredByTippr (Tippr's white-label, group buying platform) will also have the option to promote their own daily deals through the Local Offers program. 

"Our partnership with Yahoo! means more consumers are getting more deals, and more merchants are getting more customers," said Martin Tobias, founder and chief executive officer of Tippr. "The best part is that any publisher using the PoweredByTippr platform can expose their own branded group buying site to the Yahoo! audience with the proverbial flip of a switch. This is something no other group buying site can offer its partners."