Startup PunchTab is debuting a an iPhone app, SolidPunch, today as a rewards platform for your Facebook friends. SolidPunch by PunchTab lets you reward your Facebook friends for all the favors they do for you.
You sign into the app via Facebook Connect and the app will automatically populate your friends. You can then punch your friends when they do you a favor. Did a friend buy you lunch? You can give them a punch. Similar to the way your Subway Club Card works, your friends earn punches. When they accumulate, 6 punches you can send them a reward or coupon from the PunchTab catalog for free (PunchTab makes money when a friend uses the coupon to buy an item). And like every startup launching this week, PunchTab will be offering Austin-specific rewards for SolidPunch users.
PunchTab’s website allows publishers to give reward points to users who check in to your site or blog every day. Visitors, which authenticate via Facebook Connect, can earn points for Facebook comments, WordPress comments and Facebook likes. Once a publisher rewards a users, the visitor can redeem the reward through the PunchTab rewards catalog. The startup says the integration is simple, only requiring a publisher to add a few lines of code.
For now, PunchTab’s publisher offering is in private beta but the first 100 TechCrunch readers to use the invite code “TECHPUNCH” here will be able to access and test out the service. PunchTab is the brainchild of YouSendIt founder Ranjith Kumaran.
While in a different package and branding, SolidPunch kind of reminds me of Facebook Gifts. Of course, this feature was shut down by Facebook last August. Hopefully PunchTab/PlacePunch doesn’t meet the same fate.