What if the next time you went to a football game, there was an iPhone app for that stadium that listed all the bathrooms nearest you, all the food stalls (with menus and the ability to order from your seat), a button to contact medical assistance, and the ability to find car pools back home? One of today’s Demopit winners at TechCrunch50 is Chyngle, has created a branded app for the University of Michigan which does just that.
Chyngle’s branded apps use GPS to find out your location and discover services and people nearby. It shows them as red dots on a seating chart of the stadium. If you want to order a slice of pizza, you can send an SMS message to one of the pizza vendors and they will deliver it to your seat. CEO Todd Sullivan calls it “in-pocket marketing.”
If you want to find tickets for sale by other fans or a ride home, the app lets you call them anonymously (the calls are routed through Chyngle).
The company charges the venue a $2,000 a month for the app, and can create custom apps for any event location.
During the Q&A, the judges suggest changing the name. “My second company was called Plaxo,” says Sean Parker, “people thought it was a dental problem.” They also suggested making it a free app and creating different ones for every big venue like Madison Square Gardens
Todd Sullivan