Online services that push us to check-in and share the places we’re at, what we’re doing, what we’re eating, what we’re watching and pretty much every other daily activity we could possibly be engaged in are all around us these days, urging us to over-share our every single move with the world, in many cases for nothing but the sake of over-sharing.
CareZone is a new check-in service that aims to make a difference and add purpose, by creating a link between users’ check-ins and spending at different places on one hand, and channeling benefits to those in need on the other.
The platform offers a location-based mobile app that suggests and rewards users for choosing and checking in at a CareZone partner (shops, restaurants, …etc.) Users earn CareZone Coins for their check-ins; spending money at the CareZone partner’s business will earn them even more Coins.
Collected coins can then be distributed, half as “CareCoins” towards a good cause of the user’s choice, and the other half as “MyCoins” that can be redeemed in the form of a chosen reward, or also given away for a favorite cause.
CareZone also integrates a social media component that allows users to share their good deeds with followers, friends and family on Facebook and Twitter, encouraging them to follow suit and support a cause through CareZone too.
This whole idea and approach obviously benefits both companies and consumers while also enabling support for a number of charitable causes, hoping to make it a win-win-win situation. And obviously CareZone would win from being the facilitator of all this, so you could add an extra win in that equation.
The company also has plans to expand the platform and offer even more ways to accumulate coins and make a difference through everyday activities.
CareZone already has a handful of partners on board and a dozen various causes they’re supporting; but obviously, the focus at this point for the system to work should be to get more and more partners on board, and to grow the application’s user base; two goals that are understandably closely tied.
The mobile application is currently only available for the iPhone; with plans to support Android, BlackBerry and even Symbian soon. CareZone is also only limited to the United Arab Emirates for the time being. The startup hopes to expand to make their service available in more countries around the region and elsewhere.
CareZone, which is based in Dubai (UAE), was launched by Innoventa, a provider of integrated solutions in the areas of management and marketing, and is headed by Ritesh Tilani. The development work was done by Dubai based CloudAppers, a small/agile apps development company specialized in Web Applications and Social Media.
