"Kijiji Daily Deals" finally launches ... tomorrow

The National Post reports Kijiji's much-ballyhooed Groupon-inspired service, "Kijiji Daily Deals" will launch in major Canadian cities on Tuesday ... or Wednesday, depending on what part of the article you read:

On Tuesday, eBay's in-house online classified service will launch "Kijiji Daily Deals" a new group-buying service similar to those offered by sites such as Groupon, using technology created by Mr. Nguyen's Toronto-based startup.

For Kijiji, the new service gives eBay's popular classifieds site a new way to help small and medium-sized businesses reach out to its community of more than nine million users and gives it an instant foothold in the exploding group buying marketplace.

On Wednesday, Kijiji plans to launch local versions of its Daily Deals service in Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax, with new local services in Calgary and Edmonton set to debut within the next two weeks. The company said it plans to have a series of other Canadian cities on board by early next year.

As reported at YouSuckatKijiji.ca on October 7, 2010, I'm still confused about how this has anything to do with "FREE LOCAL CLASSIFIEDS" -- the core business at Kijiji. Yes, both models have a central philosophy of frugality, but it feels like a bit of a stretch.

Hasn't stopped me from signing up, though.