The location-based service (LBS) market has exploded in the past six months. Starting with a two-sided battled between Foursquare and Gowalla, the market now includes numerous other platforms that all offer unique ways to reward users for “checking-in” on their mobile phones.
Miso and GetGlue give you badges and stickers for watching your favorite TV shows. SCVGNR asks users to do challenges to earn points at different locations. MyTown lets you buy buildings and collect rent in a Monopoly-esque manner. Just to name a few.
But for any of these niche services to succeed and achieve scale now that Facebook Places is in the picture, they need to offer useful and valuable rewards to keep users coming back and engaging with their platform. One service that I think has a leg up on the competition is WeReward. Not only do users get points for checking-in, but those points translate to real cash. And brands win as well by using this service — they receive all the user-generated content to post where they see fit as well as detailed analytics as to who is engaging with them and where. Here’s how it works, courtesy of the local Atlanta NBC station interview I did with WeReward Founder Ted Murphy:
Have you tried WeReward? Do you agree that this model will be sustainable long-term?
Stacy is a Strategist in the Digital Innovation Group at Engauge. She has an M.S. in Integrated Marketing Communications from Northwestern's Medill School. Connect with her on Twitter @stacycohen. 
I think WeReward and SCVNGR have the best cases for location service right now. Both require interaction and have a well-designed game layer to each. WeReward provides cash incentives which would put them ahead.
I recently made a post about WeReward on our corporate blog. Since the company I work for specializes in “noncash” incentives, we made a suggestion on how WeReward could up the ante – by providing a noncash point bank for items instead of trading in for cash. It’s definitely a bias seeing where it’s posted at (an incentive company blog). Would a noncash element improve WeReward’s outlook?
(Not to link drop but here’s the above mentioned post) http://www.hindablog.com/blog/2010/8/3/wereward-puts-interaction-into-location-based-loyalty.html
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