Startup spotlight - Eproximiti

source: Columbus Alive

The entrepreneur: Jeff Harper

The pitch:

This new service, launched at Polaris today, not only brings free wi-fi to the mall but allows shoppers to access store deals from their phones or laptops. Participating stores (there's 12 so far) post sale information, including some offers that only those who use this service can get. With your smart phone, you can pull up the site and find out about deals, then show the coupon code at the register to complete the sale. Or, you can have the same info texted to your site.

You can also check out the site from home and print out the offers, subscribe to receive each store's sale updates, or just get a heads up on what you'll find once you get to the mall. Find it here.

Here's what it looks like on a Blackberry I borrowed:

And here's what one of the texts looks like on my phone:

This service will undoubtedly get better once the ball gets rolling and more stores and restaurants join in. Participating Polaris stores will soon be advertising their keywords at their locations, so you can walk by, text the keyword to a certain number and receive a text about their sales back in 45 seconds (or visit the site on your super-sweet smartphone). The idea makes sense, it was fun to try, and I'm guessing this is only the beginning of super-timely, hyper-local advertising services like these.