Facebook Challenges Chicago-based Groupon

Chicago-based Groupon is getting some stiffer competition.

Facebook has launched a new program that's a direct challenge to Groupon.

You can add Facebook to the increasing list of web sites with products similar to Groupon. Google is also offering its own brand of daily deals sent straight to your Inbox, along with countless smaller web sites.

So can any these discount deals really put a dent in Groupon, one of the fastest-growing companies in the world?

"At the end of the day, I think it benefits Groupon as well," said Andrew Razeghi, who's with Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. He said bigger companies can help promote the business as a whole.

"If you get Facebook promoting deal sites, 500 million people, it's only going to help Groupon over time," Razeghi said. "So it'll probably grow the category overall and everybody in it is going to be better off over time."

A Groupon spokeswoman would not comment for this story.

(Photo courtesy of Franco Bouly/flickr)