Brain Bricks by LEGO, putting your real world... Mobile megatrends 2012. The Discovery Economy: When Digital App Play Leads To Real-Life Finds. Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin last week invested a sizable chunk of money not into his social network, with success writ large across its IPO, but into a small startup called CrowdMob.
This firm is mixing up two seemingly odd ideas into one business: Promotion of smartphone apps and discounted local businesses. Far from another marketing men-gone-wild scenario, it's the first ripple in a coming wave of innovative uses for smartphone tech that'll lead you to discover people, places, and things in real life and vice versa. CrowdMob has a couple of products up its sleeve already. "Appy Meals," for example, is all about combining discounted paid apps and discounted real-life products, where you buy a promotional voucher at a discount price that gives you access to both a previously expensive app and also a discount on a real-world product, such as a coffee at Starbucks.