Print
Email
Print Edition Stories
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Blog
Geo-based mobile apps skip check-in, go for direct rewards
By Galen Moore
Health care industry eyes iPad
MHT's Julie Donnelly: Biotechs lag in social media use
Has location-based advertising gotten over the check-in? Startups like Foursquare and Gowalla broke the big-brother barrier by convincing users to treat location as a game, volunteering up their location in exchange for points accumulated with check-ins at favorite haunts.
While the two media darlings continue to generate buzz around their location-based coupon and loyalty programs, a cluster of New England startups is quietly wrapping up big-name customers and partners.
CardStar Inc. (formerly based in Canton, Conn.) today announced a partnership with another Boston startup, Peekaboo Mobile, to use Peekaboo’s geo-location mobile application to deliver restaurant and retail coupons. Peekaboo, owned by a two-man startup called Byte Ventures LLC, launched in March. OK, you haven’t heard of any of these companies, but two weeks ago CardStar took a $400,000 strategic investment from Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ).
“There’s a big thing around this whole check-in thing,” said Ben Dolgoff, who co-founded Peekaboo with fellow Suffolk University graduate Mike Fruzzetti. “You can go into Foursquare, check in four or five times and be the mayor, and get a coupon. Or you can just go to Peekaboo and get coupons right away.”
The day before the Verizon-Cardstar investment story leaked out, Belmont startup SaveWave Inc. announced its spinoff from Sallie Mae Corp. (NYSE: Sallie Mae) property Upromise, with $2.3 million in a Series A funding from Boston VCs Flybridge Capital Partners and Philadelphia firm First Round Capital. The company is turning the platform for Upromise’s digital grocery coupons into a white-label web and mobile program for other brands.
Grocery mobile coupon developer Pushpins moved back to Boston for the MassChallenge incubator program this month – a short while after winning the California grocery chain Safeway Inc. as a customer, along with instant activation in 1,500 stores on the West Coast.
Last but not least, Scvngr Inc., also of Boston, launched a rewards program Tuesday for its mobile scavenger hunt games in Boston. Last December, Scvngr received a $4 million round of financing led by Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) venture arm Google Ventures.
Comments
If you are commenting using a Facebook account, your profile information may be displayed with your comment depending on your privacy settings. By leaving the 'Post to Facebook' box selected, your comment will be published to your Facebook profile in addition to the space below.
RSS Feeds
