Redemption – Opportunites for Consumers and Business with Brand Loyalty Programs.

The social storefront.

As Gowalla investor Chris Sacca pointed out to me, these apps are a big deal to brands.

sacca @newmediajim With @gowalla we’ve seen that brands are thrilled an app can finally show them if consumers show up somewhere. That’s huge.

Brand loyalty programs are a no-brainer for these mobile social network apps.  Remember those cards you’d get from your favorite coffee shop?  They’d punch or stamp the back, and after a certain number of visits you’d get a free coffee.  Now with these apps, the business gets your repeat traffic, plus the added benefit of their brand being promoted and amplified to your networks.  Win Win.

Location based apps...

As Nate Riggs said, "Eventually, my gut tells me that analytics will be developed that will really help us understand consumer behavior via geo-located traffic patterns."

Jim touches on the concern that location based apps contribute to a lack of privacy. Nice touch with the Minority Report nod.

Excellent piece for understanding the issues around the platform that inspired Robert Scoble to dub this years’ web-geek spring break “the location based SXSW”