"We plan to grow our presence in social buying in partnership with our expanding regional media network," said Bruce Crair, Local.com president and chief operating officer.

Crair said the local search site operator expected to roll out its first social buying-related products by mid-year.

Effective immediately, Local.com named Malcolm Lewis as SVP and general manager of the new Social Buying unit.

Most recently, Lewis founded Fablistic, a personalized social recommendations service, which helps users find things to do and places to go based on recommendations from like-minded users.

At Local.com, Lewis will be responsible for leading the development and expansion of the company's social buying initiatives.

The announcement comes on the heels of Local.com's acquisition of the iTwango group-buying technology platform.

Leading the social media craze is Groupon, which reportedly turned down a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google late last year, and is now preparing for an initial public offering as soon as mid-year. The group-buying leader only recently announced a $950 million round of funding, which valued the company at $4.75 billion.

"We believe social buying represents an important entry point for small businesses to participate in online advertising," Crair added.

The iTwango platform lets advertisers set minimum and maximum deal participation -- known as tipping points -- which are designed to allow tighter controls than other daily-deal sites.

iTwango is presently undergoing rebranding, and will be distributed across Local.com's flagship site, its network of roughly 1,000 local and regional media sites, and 100,000 hyperlocal sites under Local.com management.

Prior to Fablistic, Lewis served as Local.com's SVP and general manager of private labels following the 2007 acquisition of private-label local search platform, PremierGuide, which Lewis himself founded.