I met Jyri Engestrom at the Monaco Media Forum late 2010. He was in the early development stages of Ditto and we talked about the idea of VRM, and how location-based services have to move into that space to become really useful.

The growing armada of location-based services just let me share where I currently am. I always questioned the value for user and advertisers. Why would I be interested to receive a $1 off coupon from the bar across the street when I just plopped down on my chair, ordered a drink and checked in?

Ditto goes beyond the check-in: It shares your intent to do something. Much more interesting for the user (commercially but also socially) and definitely for advertisers. If I know what you’re intending to do, I can provide you with extremely relevant offers. The application won’t be limited to food and drinks, Engestrom envisions expanding its offering to anything that’s discoverable: books, music, movies, etc.

I find this application very useful and much more valuable than any of the other location-based service apps have to offer at this point. (Sorry, no badges.) We’ll see if it will take off during SXSW.

The Techcrunch write-up.

iTunes link