Yesterday's launch of Facebook Deals is big news for business. If you haven't heard, Facebook Deals is tied to Places, the ability to check-in at a location like Starbucks for example.

Despite location-based services being popular among tech lovers and social media geeks, there continues to be two beefs: the first being that they intrude on privacy, especially with the ability to "tag" other users who might not want to be so public with their activity; two, the services haven't really proven much in the way for business outcomes, mostly because the location based services just aren't mainstream enough.

With a half a billion users, Facebook aims to change that second point. Deals is going to be a big winner for both consumers and businesses. The service makes absolute sense, has a low cost barrier for businesses and consumers are going to love it. This much we know.

One thing businesses might not know about Deals is that despite it being a simple yet effective way for business of all seizes to get tap into real time customer interactions, this sales tactic equals more work offline.