New mobile app Speadi allows local businesses to create deals for their customers and then have those participants “race” to receive the deals in real-time. Speadi charges a flat fee for each deal, in contrast to competitors like Groupon and LivingSocial.

According to the press release, participating businesses, or sponsors, retain complete control over when, how much, how long, and what kind of traffic they want at any given time of the day. “Love the ability to post a special whenever I want and control the number of specials available,” said Kris Kildea, a business owner who’s used the service.

Last week was the service’s official launch, and around 400 runners raced each other for the 41 different deals. The mobile app itself saw over 1000 runners participate just a few days after that. Sponsors offering deals throughout the day included VG’s, Biggby, French Laundry, Gatsby Grind, Alexander J’s, and Avon.

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Speadi - Mobile Punch Card Plus

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2012-06-10 :: Category: Lifestyle

The concept behind the Hello Music website is a simple but brilliant one: provide members with information regarding all manner of deals and sales, on all kinds of musical goodies. The Hello Music app does pretty much the same thing, only on iOS. In other words, with an account on the website and the app on a phone, anyone looking for great deals is covered.

The site, and by extension the application, will per-negotiate discounts on a set (and limited) quantity of various items. These range from tangible objects such as amps, pedals and such, to less tangible things like studio time. Since quantities are limited the deals don’t last long (usually around 48 hours), but with a handy-dandy iOS app to monitor these deals on the go it becomes much less of an issue.

Setting up an account on the website is free. The app is free. Suffice it to say, any musicians with even a little interest in savings (and an iPhone, of course) need to take a look at this.

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Hello Music

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2011-12-16 :: Category: Music

EA are well-known for their sales on the App Store. Usually, around some kind of holiday, there’s a sale on many EA Mobile games, often dropping games from $6.99 down to $0.99. So what is EA Mobile supposed to do with this time of year, referred to as the “holiday season?” Have an entire month of price cuts and deals, apparently. Thus, EA Mobile has begun their “Daily Deals” program.

The Daily Deals have kicked off with games dropping to the lowest price point possible: free! The first two free games were The Sims Medieval for iPhone/iPod touch, and Shift 2: Unleashed for both iPhone/iPod touch and iPad. As well, Battlefield 2: Bad Company went on sale for $1.99 for iPhone/iPod touch, and $4.99 for iPad; these are 33% and 50% discounts off the regular price, respectively. As per the title of the program, EA is claiming that there will be new deals each day, although for the first weekend of the promotion these deals remained in effect.

EA is offering a web app for users to keep track of the promotion at their EA Daily Deals web page. A new deal will be made available each day at 9:00 am PST (GMT -8), and EA says that they will vary from more free games, to deep discounts on paid titles.

While people love deep discounts on iOS games, and I myself am not excluded, I have to wonder if the current state of the mobile game business, where those who wish to sell games at premium price points are unable to do so because companies like EA can afford to drop their prices to deep discounts like this. In many ways, it’s led to situations like the release of the new Tetris game, which relies heavily on IAP monetization, which is something some vocal users have been staunchly against. Massive regular sales on titles like this might be why that kind of situation is now occurring, and why sales like this exist, because it is difficult to sell titles at price points above $0.99, or even free. When EA, one of the companies that can actually sell titles at higher prices is so willing to have these kinds of fire sales with massive promotion, it does not necessarily portend well for the future of premium-priced apps on the App Store.

Everybody loves to save money wherever possible. Even more so in the current global financial climate. So what better way of doing so than through a free app by the name of Shopkick?

Shopkick offers users all manners of new and exclusive shopping deals from the likes of Target, Best Buy, Macy’s, American Eagle, Sports Authority, Crate & Barrel and more. Perhaps even better, it also offers a rewards package in which users can simply and quickly gain gift cards, free movie tickets or help a good cause just by shopping. Shopkick ensures there’s hardly anything people need to do to gain such rewards. They can do this by simply walking into one of the many partner stores, scanning products, making purchases or simply by checking in to the store. Walk in rewards are available in 80 different places across the US, including NYC, LA, SF, Dallas, Chicago, BOS, ATL, Houston, D.C., Miami, Seattle and St. Louis.

Shopkick also provides users with the ability to personalize their deal feed by picking out their favourite stores from over 50 different national chains, so it’s easy to pick out the best deals. There’s also top ten deals listed regularly to consult at a quick glance. Users can easily check out what stores are nearby and what deals are offered simply by tapping on the nearby menu option.

Users can quickly check how near they are to acquiring a reward by checking their total at the top of each screen within ShopKick. The rewards are suitably varied with the likes of charitable donations, gift certificates or simply Facebook credits ensuring there’s something for everyone’s taste. Plus they’re relatively easily acquired too by checking what products provide what deals.

Shopkick is available now for North American users and is a free app so it’s well worth a try. Here’s hoping something similar comes over to Europe in the near future.

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shopkick

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2010-08-16 :: Category: Lifestyle