The most interesting new feature in iOS 6 to me was Passbook. The idea that I can now have quick access to movie, plane and other tickets, as well as relevant information for where I am at any given time, is an absolute time-saver. After I heard about Passbook, I immediately reached out to Brian Wong, CEO of Kiip.
Kiip is the reward platform that works with both developers and advertisers to bring app users great rewards for meeting certain milestones in a game or other app, on both iOS and Android devices. It looks like Kiip wasted no time getting involved with Passbook and is now stepping its new program out of beta, for all users. That means that your earned rewards will now be easily accessible within Passbook.
Why did Kiip wait to release this? It didn't really, Wong told me. "We've already been doing Passbook tests, but it wasn't worth talking about just yet. It's just creating a new type of file download. It gets generated and you download it and it goes to Passbook."
He makes it sound really simple, but the truth is that Kiip is in a perfect position to leverage the Passbook technology, and install base that Apple brings with it. Remember, that's 100M iOS 6 customers thus far. While Passbook isn't available for Android phones just yet, Wong hopes that Google develops a similar "Wallet."
The only problem is that it's iOS only (Passbook), but that's why we built the Kiip App to make redemption as easy as possible for the consumer. iOS for us for now won't involve the Kiip app as much, but Passbook is now the main redemption delivery for us. Why? It's baked in.
How well has Kiip done with letting developers offer rewards in their apps? Wong tells me that the company gives out six rewards per second, and has delivered 100M rewards since the company launch about a year and a half ago. When it comes to what type of rewards the platform offers, 40% are real goods and the rest are virtual. That's surprising to some, but Wong tells me that giving in-app codes and other virtual giveaways delight app users.
It's not all roses for Apple Passbook though, as Wong explained:
We were cautious about the Passbook release, a lot of people have looked at it and seen it as Nirvana as couponing, but it doesn't solve the scanning issue yet, just the redemption. This won't make the scanning problem less difficult, the rollout of scanning technology hasn't happened at a majority of stores across the globe. Scanning a screen is impossible with red laser technology.
Kiip has drifted outside of just games in its developer network, with 20% of the apps being from a variety of other verticals. If you're wondering how Apple Passbook could be useful for you or your company, look no further than Kiip, which is trailblazing once again.
[Photo credit: Flickr]
This story originally appeared in TechCrunch.
