Foursquare. Gowalla. SCVNGR. When it comes to location-based services, games are obviously red-hot, and users (and the press) are eating them up. increasingly, these services are turning on their revenue faucets as they help businesses set up special deals for frequent customers. But do you really need a game in the first place when you’re offering people free sandwiches or discounts on their new jeans?
PlacePop doesn’t think so. We’ve been tracking the company since its debut at our CrunchUp last July — it launched an iPhone app that lets businesses create virtual loyalty cards (think those 10-hole punch cards from Subway, but you use an app on your mobile phone instead of carrying around the actual card). → Read More
Facebook Places appears to be off to a strong start, with integration into services like Gowalla, Yelp, and SCVNGR. But it also has some pretty glaring omissions, namely the fact there’s not really a good way to do much with Places data from the browser. Now PlacePop, a startup that launched at our CrunchUp in July, has fixed that with a new Facebook application that gives you an overview of how you friends are using Facebook Places. You can access the new application right here.
The new application can best be described as a power user’s tool for Facebook Places. After connecting it with your account, you’ll see a dashboard offering an overview of your recent Places activity: data like your total checkins this week, the venues you check into most frequently, and how often your friends are checking in. → Read More
It’s no secret that loyalty programs — like those hole-punch cards that give you a free Slurpee every ten visits — are a great, cheap way to keep customers coming back to your business. Thing is, running these programs isn’t always as easy as it seems, especially if a business wants to do something more complex than the basic “buy ten get one free”. PlacePop is a new startup looking to make these loyalty programs accessible to any business: the startup has built a self-serve platform based around its new iPhone application which companies can use to distribute virtual, custom-branded loyalty cards.
Today, the company is launching at our Social Currency CrunchUp, and it’s also announcing that it has closed a $1.4 million round of funding. Participants in the round include Affinity Labs Founder Chris Michel, Bebo Founder Michael Birch, and James Currier and Stan Chudnovsky, both of whom cofounded Ooga Labs. → Read More
