Venice Beach startup Beach Mobile, Inc. exited public beta with the release of Boardwalk™ App 1.1.0 on Friday. This new version includes integration with Apple’s Passbook, allowing users to store coupons easily and businesses to track transactions more efficiently.
Since the company launched in the fall of 2014, they have deployed hundreds of beacons to businesses, hotels, bars, restaurants, tourist attractions, and historical places along the 3.5 miles of Pacific Ocean beaches from Marina del Rey to Santa Monica.
Boardwalk is a commerce tool that generates foot traffic for local businesses.
Co-founders Evan White and Mason Lee have extensive experience in the mobile tech world; the two have started and worked for numerous well-known tech companies including Ustream, Viddy, and Textie Messaging.
“We’ve built an engaging mobile commerce tool for Venice Beach, and so far the response from business owners has been overwhelming,” said Evan White, CEO. “We’re active members in the Venice Chamber of Commerce, and proud supporters of local events like the Venice Art Crawl and Venice Sign Lighting,” he said. “Although we recognize the broader potential of what we’re building, right now we’re entirely focused on the area we know and love, hence our reference to Boardwalk as a ‘Pier-to-Pier’ application.”
In March 2015, the app found dual-use as the Official App of the Venice Art Crawl, a quarterly Venice Chamber of Commerce event held at dozens of locations throughout the Venice neighborhood.
“The VAC has been looking for an app to help make the Venice Art Crawl more easily navigable, and when we saw the Venice Boardwalk App we knew it was a perfect fit,” said Sunny Bak, President of the VAC. ‘
This app is not just for out-of-town tourists – local Angelenos and even Venice residents find hidden gems, awesome coupons and great discounts daily in their Boardwalk deals.
Abbot Kinney founded Venice in 1905 as a seaside resort town known for its beaches, canals and pleasure pier.
Today, Venice receives some 17 million annual visitors, ranking it the second most trafficked tourist destination in California, behind Disneyland.
“I love how the Boardwalk App is using Estimote beacons to make Venice Beach an even more interesting place than it already is,” said Mark Modzelewski, a Senior Advisor at Estimote, Inc.
Boardwalk is a free app available for both iPhones and Android devices, offering users a fun way to build a custom map for their trip to Venice Beach.
Users have access to exclusive deals and can easily plan their itinerary from anywhere.
Not just for tourists, locals will find hidden gems in the app that they might not otherwise know about, including: $10 off Segway rentals, 20 percent off Maui and Sons apparel, and 10 percent off medicinal cannabis at the Green Goddess Collective.
Boardwalk App 1.1.0 provides Passbook integration, beacon technology, translations for many languages, and a new sorting algorithm to show people more of the amazing things they’re near.
Download it today: http://VeniceBoardwalkApp.com.
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