Facebook is killing its daily deals business in Austin and other pilot cities, according to a statement emailed to the Reuters news agency.
"We think there is a lot of power in a social approach to driving people into local businesses," Facebook added in the statement. "We've learned a lot from our test and we'll continue to evaluate how to best serve local businesses."
The world’s largest social network chose Austin and four other cities in April to launch its own version of daily deals coupon sites like Groupon, Living Social, and Localiter.
Facebook’s announcement in April came one day after Google had announced a similar pilot program in Portland. Since then, Google has slowly expanded into additional markets and recently acquired Dealmap, which aggregates daily deals and puts them on a map.
Facebook’s exit from the daily deals market has some observers asking if the golden age of the daily deals market is coming to an end. Mashable’s editor-at-large, Ben Parr, writes that “when two major players withdraw from the space and its biggest player experiences a 50% traffic decline, it’s a clear sign that the daily deals market is no longer in its heyday.”
