Get paid in dimes with free Facebook Credits from Facebook

We've long been used to getting freebies from Zynga, Playfish, Crowdstar, and the like, by watching advertisements and answering surveys. Now Facebook is doing it too, as Facebook Credits is quickly becoming the de jure standard of premium virtual money in Facebook games.

Starting last Thursday, users can get at least 1 free Facebook Credit (which roughly equals $0.10 USD) for each online video advertisement viewed. This is all to promote Facebook Deals, which is a service that notifies users of local discounts that can go even lower if you manage to get a bunch of friends to pay up too. So yeah, Facebook is clearly jumping into competition with sites like GroupOn, BuyWithMe, and LivingSocial.

Facebook Credits can be redeemed in Facebook Deals, but Mashable speculates that -- due to Zynga, Crowdstar and Digital Chocolate being among the first to run such ads in their games -- this offer will mostly capture the eyeballs and pockets of Facebook gamers. Which is all well and good, because we know ten cents can buy you a lot more in fun than it can on a daily group deal.