AT&T enters the crowded marketplace of daily deal sites

MONEY-SAVING MOMENT: AT&T is the latest competitor to rise to the challenge of daily deal site Groupon by working with local businesses to offer a daily discounted deal on services or goods to subscribers.

AT&T is testing out its competing service in Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles. It’s an unusual move to go right into three of the Top 10 markets, but AT&T must obviously feel confident about what they’ve got.

Right now you can get $10 in the initial launch cities to spend on a daily deal when you sign up at YellowPages.com. It’s a simple registration. You pop in your e-mail, zip code and that’s about it. There’s no obligation and no cost to you for the $10 voucher. Just free money! (Editor’s note: You can only get the $10 offer through May 22, 2011.)

In general, though, daily deal sites are seeing a decline in traffic. I know they’ve become less and less a part of my life. I have stopped buying them because I made the mistake of getting one that I let expire and lost money. (Meanwhile, there’s also a lawsuit against one of these daily deal sites alleging the way that the coupons “sunset” is a violation of the new gift card law. We’ll see how that plays out in court.)

So I just want you to know this deal is out there from AT&T if you live in the markets I mentioned. And I am curious to see if a company such as AT&T — one that is so unrelated to discount marketing and totally does not have this idea as part of their corporate culture — will be able to establish itself in this arena.