Hands-on: How to use Facebook Deals. We test it out.

First things first. Open up your Facebook app. (Facebook Deals currently works on all Android and iPhone handsets. Sorry, no BlackBerry app yet.)

You’ll need the Places icon. This will use your phone’s signal and GPS to generate a list of places near you.
Anywhere with a current deals will pop up with a yellow tag in its entry.

We wanted to try YO! Sushi and popped sushi into the search bar. Results will include a map, which takes you to Google maps, plus more info about the deals and the shop.

Then we went for sushi- at the YO!Sushi branch in Russell Square.

The place was packed; we saw several people brandishing their phones at the staff, but they seemed to know exactly what to do. We checked in; the current deal meant you had to check-in a friend alongside yourself. It’s all delicious social-network data to Facebook.

Then we ate! The current deal offers 5 free plates (any off the menu) and a drink each for two. We had chicken katsu curry, noodles and, naturally, sushi.

Using the deal is like using any discount card or voucher, we had to show the phone to confirm our check-in to staff at the till, where you’d pay for anything else, like those five extra plates you managed to finish…
 

On the way back to Recombu Towers we also tested the Starbucks deal. After checking-in, this one had a three-hour time limit for use.

As you can see, at 2pm on the first day, they had only given away just over 300 cups- across the whole Starbucks network. That’s a meagre 1% of what Starbucks are offering on the Facebook Deal, so there’s plenty of time to try it this week. Thus, the ‘thumbs-up’.

Free coffee and sushi. What a Monday.