The two men made the app just for fun, but now they want to use it to make some money.
Two Myrtle Beach software developers created a smart phone application that won an international competition this week.
The two men made the app just for fun, but now they want to use it to make some money.
Joe Clarke is the software guy. Mikkel Green is the tech guy.
Together, the two men entered an app-development competition sponsored by Foursquare, a social network that allows people to find restaurants and other venues based on what their friends recommend.
The competitors were all given just 48 hours to develop a smart phone app for Foursquare users. Clarke says the time constraint was just part of the fun for the two men.
"For us, it's fun to work for 15 hours in a day," Clarke laughs. "And it was just a nice sense of accomplishment to be able to come up with something, start with zero and have a finished complete product by the end of the weekend."
What Clarke and Green came up with - beating out 80 competitors from around the world - is a system for handing out coupons for free stuff to those who use Foursquare the most.
"What our app allows you to do is set up rewards for checking in on Foursquare," Clarke explained.
Their app plays into today's coupon craze.
"We've seen an explosion in the online couponing, extreme couponing and all that stuff," said Green.
The two men call their app "The Reward Board". It would call for restaurants and other businesses to put up TV screens to display those who have recently checked in on Foursquare.
"(As I check in on Foursquare), up on the reward board, my name is going to appear and if I win a coupon, it's going to print out on the printer," Clarke said, during a recent demonstration of the app.
Clarke and Green say they got into the competition just for fun without any intention of making money off of their app. That changed, after they won.
"Since we won, there may be something behind this idea and it's something we can look into further," Clarke said. "It can be something we could charge for, like for a restaurant. If they wanted to bring the Reward Board into the restaurant, we could charge them a fee for the equipment and for the service."
For winning the competition, Clarke and Green will get a free trip to New York, to ring the opening bell at the NASDAQ stock exchange.
And if they play their app right, it could win them much more than just a coupon.
