These days it isn’t uncommon to use the geolocating service on our mobile phones to help navigate but do you ever use your phone to pull up deals in your immediate area?
Today’s guest post is by Christian Florensa, the CEO of binggo. Binggo is a company that helps people find relevant deals nearby and today he’s here to share more about location based mobile apps.
If you are like me, you have a bunch of purchased coupons (from Groupon® and all of its copycats) lying around that you never remember to use. Combine that with the fact that you do not look at the multiple deal emails that you receive on a daily basis. And what’s worse when you look, you realize that you were just at a place that had a great deal going on and you didn’t even know it.
Had you used a “location based mobile app” that focuses on deals, you would have avoided that last disappointment. These kind of mobile apps are helping to change the landscape of the daily deals marketplace. Yet there are still some things to consider.
The essence of a good location based app is that it’s smart enough to use information about you (your location in this case) to help you filter the clutter and give you only relevant information.
At the same time, one of the issues about location based apps is that you may have to give up a bit of your privacy. When the app communicates with the server it may transfer information that makes your phone identifiable. Some people do not have a problem with that but others do, including myself.
Some applications actually demand that you login or link the app with your Facebook® profile before they give you any information or make it more difficult to get the info if you don’t. I do not see why anybody would need to have my Facebook information to give me information about relevant things nearby.
It is important therefore that when the app is requesting information, it is doing so anonymously – no personally identifiable information about you or your smartphone should be transferred. Naturally, when you want to buy something you will have to provide personal information – as you do in any physical store – but when you are just “looking” you want to remain anonymous.
Another cool feature of some location based apps is that you can also plan ahead if you want. You can tell them where you plan to be and they will return information as if you were already there. This is great when you are planning a shopping afternoon, but it is even better if you are going on a trip and you want to squeeze in a lot of activities during a short timeframe while maximizing savings.
There are a lot of deals out there, even if you use geo-location you’ll be amazed of how much stuff you can find that is nearby. And a smartphone has very limited screen space, so another important aspect about looking for deals when you are out and about is simplicity and speed. You want to get to the deals quickly, and you want to be able to filter them according to what you are looking for: is it clothing for you, something for the kids, or a good deal at a nearby restaurant or spa? And all of that needs to be quick and easy.
By morphing daily deals market into the location based app business you can find out what deals are close to you when you need them. The iPhone and Android app, binggo™ for instance helps you find the best deals around. With binggo you can buy coupons right when you need them because binggo searches on all the major deal providers and shows you everything available, sorted according to how far they are and filters further by category. binggo is a location-based app.
All in all, location based apps such as binggo, bring you the ability to get relevant information around you, including the best deals, but still you want to be a smart user and watch out for their privacy management.
You can watch binggo’s demonstration video at: www.binggodeals.com and you can get the iOS version here and the Android version here.
Christian has spent 15 years in hi-tech product management, marketing and operations. He is passionate about his family, nature and technology but
especially using technology to improve our daily lives.
No compensation was received for this post.
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Original post by Tech Savvy Mama
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