Microsoft to bring daily deals to Bing users

Aiming to harness some of the buzz surrounding deal of the day websites as of late, Microsoft said Thursday it had partnered with The Dealmap. The San Francisco-based aggregator site takes content from about 200 sites like Groupon and LivingSocial, and lists them on a single page organized by city.

Instead of attempting to create its own program, or look to acquire an existing service like Google's failed buyout of Groupon last year, Microsoft believed it easiest to partner with an aggregator like The Dealmap to bring a deals offering to Bing users.

Google is apparently pursuing a different strategy. Reports surfaced in January the company was talking with businesses about participating in a test of a Groupon-like program. The Mountain View, Calif. search giant has neither confirmed nor denied the rumors.

"The Dealmap is a leading source for people to find and share the best local deals, so naturally it made sense for us to team up with them to bring you the best experience," product management director Andy Chu said in a blog post announcing the deal.

Through the mobile site and app, a new menu option "Deals" has appeared. Getting to these deals through the desktop site is a little different, however: users will need to click through local results to see them, the company says.

Microsoft is using Dealmap's DealExchange API to offer the listings to its users. The deal site launched the platform in December, and so far about 280 developers have incorporated Dealmap's functionality into their applications.