Stiff-Armed by Groupon, Google Will Clone It

Google kept the Silicon Valley rumor mill a-flyin' all last quarter as it pursued and wooed Chicago's group-buying giant, Groupon.

Rumors of $6 billion offers danced in their heads, but Groupon declined the offers and stayed closely held -- and then ran their valuation estimates north of Google's offer price -- all the way to around $15 billion.

Now Mashable and Silicon Alley are reporting that Google is launching a clone of the coupon service, calling it Google Offers. It's already a tight market space, what with Groupon being the gorilla and LivingSocial having quite a following, too.

There are already aggregators, like CouponSherpa, for herding the best deals.

Offers will be via daily email, and according to Mashable, Google is courting businesses aggressively.

And Mashable offers this revenue-model tidbit, too: "We’ve also learned that Google will pay out 80% of a business’ revenue share three days after its deal runs. Google will hold the remaining 20% for 60 days to cover refunds before sending the rest."

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