Microsoft has inked a new partnership with 8coupons to replace The Dealmap, which had been providing local offers to Bing Deals for about nine months.
The partnership understandably ended once Microsoft’s big search rival, Google, acquired The Dealmap in August.
“We can confirm that Bing is no longer partnering with The Dealmap and is now partnering with local and daily deal aggregator 8coupons,” a Microsoft spokesperson said. “We’re excited about the partnership with 8coupons and to be able to offer our customers access to great deals and discounts from across the Web — all in one place.”
A spokesperson for 8coupons also confirmed the partnership, adding that it started to replace The Dealmap a couple of weeks ago.
Rather than build a Groupon copycat as Google and Amazon have done, Microsoft has decided to partner with an aggregator that collects offers from various providers around the Web. Deals delivered by 8coupons come from Restaurant.com, Yelp, LivingSocial and GiltCity, among many others, as shown on the Bing Deals homepage.
Google’s purchase of The Dealmap was relatively small, especially compared to its failed $6 billion offer to buy Groupon. So far, The Dealmap is being used for the underpinnings of a pilot project that Google Offers has rolled out in the Bay Area.
In San Francisco, Google works with more than a dozen deal providers so that it can offer a variety of deals every day. It believes that in order to have relevant offers for all types of consumers, you need a lot of good deals, not just one a day.