Archive for the ‘Geo-Location’ Category

Posted on April 26, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

Save $1,000 off your next Mercedes-Benz with a foursquare check-In at The New York Auto Show

I’m a few days late on this post as I was traveling last week to attend Where 2.0 location conference but if you were lucky enough to attend the The New York Auto Show last week and wanted to save $1,000.00 off your next Mercedes-Benz all you had to do was check-in with foursquare. Awesome right?

Photo credit: 2011 Mercedes SLS AMG Gull Wing Photo by: ccho on flickr at the New York 2011 International Auto Show.

Here’s a quote from the press announcement.

In its first-ever Foursquare promotional offer, geo-social users checking in at the Jacob K. Javits Center in Manhattan, NY, will be encouraged to locate a Mercedes product specialist and show him or her their phone screen. Then, they will receive a $1,000 off voucher for a new car purchase. NYIAS 2011 runs from Friday through May 1.

“We are not nibbling around and watching Ford, Lexus, and GM try these things,” said Steve Cannon, the German carmaker’s U.S. VP of marketing. “I believe you’ve got to dive in.”

 

While I’ll give Mercedes-Benz a B- for using foursquare at the New York Auto Show and I’m sure some people who are looking to buying a new Mercedes-Benz are like awesome a $1,000 the promotion is also like giving away a one free doughnut when you’re buying a dozen. But at least Mercedes-Benz is trying and didn’t just try to offer a check-in badge. I think a better deal and/or promotion would have been the following:

• A special 2011 Mercedes-Benz auto show foursquare check-in badge with the $1,000 off
• One free Mercedes-Benz to a foursquare user  checking in during the  2011 New York Auto Show
• Either $4,000 off for the first 400 or 100 foursquare check-ins (get it, “4″) plus badges
• A nation wide foursquare badge and special at all Mercedes-Benz dealerships during the New York Auto Show
• Include all marketing channels (TV, Radio, Web/social) which I’m still don’t get why more companies don’t use all of their marketing resources to promote a LBS and/or social promotion. Then they wonder why it didn’t provide the results they thought it would.

Note: Mercedes-Benz may have offerend more and I just haven’t read or seen it.

Do you think the “Save $1,000 off a Mercedes-Benz with a foursquare Check-In at The New York Auto Show” was a good idea or do you think Mercedes-Benz could have done more or something else with foursquare?

via Mercedes’ 1st Gear on Foursquare: $1,000 Check-Ins [Video] | ClickZ.
tip Mercedes-Benz offers $1,000 off a car for checking in at the NY Auto Show | About Foursquare

Posted on April 18, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

The Growth of Mobile Marketing and Tagging – infographic via Microsoft Tag

As you know I’m a huge fan of QR Codes but let’s not forget about Microsoft Tags. Like QR Codes, Microsoft Tags have a similar value in allowing mobile users to easily scan and interacte with mobile content. To explain, the Microsoft Tag team has create the The Growth of Mobile Marketing and Tagging infographic. Take a look below.

Learn More about Mobile Tagging at Microsoft Tag.

Have you scanned or seen a Microsoft Tag recently?

Posted on April 15, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

Coming Soon! 4 New Location Based iPhone apps by minority founders with awesome landing pages, +1

In October of last year while speaking at the Blogalicious conference I bumped into James Andrews, founder of Social People.TV. Both of us were speaking at the conference and had a quick moment to catch up. James, busy traveling and working with celebrity clients discussing social media strategies and I spent most of last year speaking about location-based marketing, apps and TriOut. James also knows Tristan Walker who manages business development at foursquare and we both smiled at the fact that two minorities are very active and visible in the location based startup space.

Fast forward to the end of quarter one of 2011 and four new minority founded location based iPhone applications are prepping to establish their own footprint in the space. Each one with a unique location based twist and with an awesome landing page design. I’m truly excited to see more minority entrepreneurs go after their dreams and launch a startup no matter if it’s in the location space or not. I wish each one of them much success. Here are the four minority founded location based apps coming soon.

1.

Cued

change the way you experience location”

founder – Angela Benton
url – getcued.com

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2.

Mosion

Mosion is a mobile relationship discovery service that uses location-based technology to introduce you to people that you really ought to know.


founder – Wesly Michel
url – signup.mosion.me

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3.

Arrived

Let them know you’ve arrived

founder – Clarence Wooten
url – getarrived.com

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4.

Toour

Create, share, and discover toours

founder – Jessica Faye Carter
url - ontoour.com

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+1

As for the +1 it’s Aaron Bannister who I got a chance to meet at SXSW 2011 and was recently covered on Black Web 2.0 about his location based startup called locaii. Locaii provides a way for you to interact with others while at your favorite places.

Regardless if you apart of the minority tech bubble, I think you should check out all five of the location based apps. If you’re aware of other minority founded location based apps let me know in the comments.

Which iPhone app above are you excited to see launch the most?

Posted on March 21, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

What’s new with TriOut and the Robert Scoble SXSW video interview with a sneak peak at TriOut v3

Originally posted on TriOut’s blog
How time flies in the location space. Just one year ago, Lawrence Ingram and myself held a TriOut launch party at the Research Triangle Park HQ and launched TriOutNC.com. At the launch party we announced our first hyper local check in deals contest. Since then a lot has changed. TriOut has added a sales manager Gregg Morris and anther iPhone developer, Josh Johnson.

Over the past year, team TriOut had an amazing opportunity to participate at various location based conference such as geom with some of the other location-based services like foursquare, gowalla and scvanger and at blogworld 2010 we launch version two of our iPhone app. With version two of our app we decided to open up TriOut for anyone to use in the world but still remain a hyper local focus. We also launched an API and a HTML5 version of TriOut.

In the first year of TriOut we have learned a lot and watch as the entire location space has evolved and continues to grow. One opportunity that opened to us was to make TriOut a white label platform in which we could build geo based mobile apps using the TriOut api for businesses, brands, universities and more. This led us to a conversation with NC State University to build a location-based social network for the school called “OnCampus”. We’ll have more news about OnCampus and how other schools can have their own location-based social network soon.

During SXSW 2011, I caught up with Robert Scoble for an update on TriOut and showed him a demo of OnCampus along with a sneak peak at TriOut version three iPhone app in the works. Take a look.

Thanks for the support, especially the local Triangle, NC community. We’re excited about the future of TriOut!

Posted on March 3, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

yobongo! Out of private beta, ready for you to chat with people nearby but in selected cities

That’s right, those of you who have been dying to test Yobongo and/or attending SXSW the wait is over. Yobongo is finally out of private beta and ready for you to chat with people nearby on your iPhone. Today Caleb and David the cofounders of Yobongo announced first in the Yobongo private beta room that you can now download yobongo from Apple iTunes App store. But there’s a catch, Yobongo is launching in selected cities starting with Austin, New York and San Francisco, Yobongo’s HQ. More from Louis Gray about the Yobongo launch.

The service is following Foursquare’s roots in starting slow geographically, which will no doubt draw some irritation from expectant users outside the covered geographies, but there’s a method to the madness. San Francisco and New York are well-known social media hubs, central to the success of Twitter and Foursquare, and Austin is home to the SXSW event starting next week, which could be a high-profile beginning for Yobongo.

The launch also comes only days after the announcement of Facebook’s acquisition of Beluga, a well-received group chat application also expected to make waves at the show. Caleb Elston, cofounder and CEO of Yobongo, says, “If we are not in your city, don’t fret! You can vote to bring it to your city next ”

As a yobongo beta tester I’m excited to see yobongo launch and use it at SXSW next week. As a NC resident I’m crushed, but it’s a smart move by yobongo to launch in selected cites. You can download Yobongo iphone app at here [iTunes link]

Update:

You can vote to have yobongo launch in your city at http://yobongo.com/cities. Raleigh, NC is on the list and can be requested here: http://yobongo.com/cities/North-Carolina/Raleigh You can expect to see more we want yobongo tweets and facebook status updates for users still wanting in. Other cities on the list are Los Angeles, CAm Chicago, IL, Boston, MA, San Diego, CA, Salt Lake City, UT, New Haven, CT, Seattle, WA Dallas, TX, , Miami, FL. Kansas City, KS and Atlanta, GA.

If you live in Austin, New York or San Francisco let me know about your yobongo experience in the comments