T-Mobile plays mobile daily deal maker

It was only a matter of time before mobile operators tapped into the growing daily deal market, which is tailor-made for handsets. T-Mobile today became the first operator to jump into the sector with More for Me, a service initially for Android smartphones that serves up an array of local deals for food, clothing, concerts and services that customers can purchase directly from their phones.

T-Mobile, however, has chosen to partner with some of the big names in social couponing rather than launch its own competing service. The application—downloadable from the Android market—aggregates dozens if not hundreds of local coupons per market from deal providers like LivingSocial, Goldstar and Tippr.

“Consumers are constantly looking for ways to save money and are turning to social buying apps in droves,” Brad Duea, T-Mobile senior vice president of value added services marketing, said in a statement (Briefing Room: T-Mobile launches More for Me) .

Missing from T-Mobile’s list of partners is daily deal king, Groupon, which already has an aggressive independent mobile strategy. Using smartphone applications on all of the major OS platforms, Groupon pushes daily deal alerts to the device. Customers can purchase and manage those coupons on their phones, and can even redeem them directly from the device by presenting a digital version of the coupons directly to merchants. Groupon has even added new capabilities like Groupon now, which allows a customer to perform a search of their environs to see what immediate deals are available within a few blocks or miles.

T-Mobile’s service has a few more limitations compared to Groupon and other couponing companies’ dedicated apps. More for Me aggregates the coupons, but doesn’t sell them directly. To buy a coupon, customers are redirected to the provider’s Website, where they either have to sign in to their accounts or register for the service, which in many cases requires entering credit card data. In some cases, the Websites aren’t even optimized for the mobile browser, making navigating the deal details and purchase page difficult. But as T-Mobile points out in its release, the service is still in beta—it’s still working out some kinks.

The brains behind the service is Out There Media, a mobile advertising and marketing company. T-Mobile and Out There plan to extend the application to other smartphone platforms and eventually to almost every phone T-Mobile offers. Devices with a Web browser or data connection could get the deals through SMS.

T-Mobile certainly isn’t the only company looking to make its mark by aggregating deals on the mobile phone. 8Coupons aggregates deals from all of the daily deal providers, including Groupon, and customizes a list of eight coupons (hence the name) for its customers each day. The company generates most of its traffic from the traditional Web browser but it just recently launched its first mobile app on the iPhone.

First Data—the same company enabling transactions for Google’s new mobile payments service (CP: Google Wallet: An operator’s friend or foe?)--is bypassing the daily deal companies entirely and working directly with retailers to provide mobile vouchers that can be distributed through mobile and online marketing campaigns. Today, First Data announced it is working with mobile media and marketing company LSN Mobile to extend those vouchers to its network of local news mobile sites and apps. The opt-in service delivers its coupons via SMS, which are then redeemed at the retail point of sale.

However, as T-Mobile expands the scope and capabilities of More for Me, it could implement features that would allow it stand out from other deal aggregators and the coupon companies themselves. It’s most powerful weapon would be direct carrier billing, though it may be difficult to offer that feature given how the payment structure for coupons work. Deal providers typically distribute revenues from the coupons within a week or two of purchase. Operators need a one-to-two month window to collect their revenues under their postpaid billing structure.

But T-Mobile is also part of the Isis consortium with AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Though Isis has suffered some setbacks (Unfiltered: Isis scales back mobile payment ambitions), but still plans on offering some kind of mobile wallet service linked to outside financial providers. If T-Mobile can integrate More for Me with such a wallet, it could provide a one-stop billing shop for its customers working across all of the coupon networks.

T-Mobile will likely test the waters for other operators who are likely exploring their own services. AT&T has launched its own online trial deal services through its Yellowpages.com subsidiary (Unfiltered: Today’s Deal: AT&T set to roll with Groupon competitor), though it is competing directly with the coupon companies rather than aggregating their deals. AT&T service is limited to a handful or markets so far, and it hasn’t taken the service to its mobile customers yet, but that could change as competition heats up.