What if you could treat loved ones, business contacts or even complete strangers to flowers, coffee, dinner or a sports game? And what if you could be treated too? Sounds good, right?
Now there’s a new iPhone app that lets you do just that. It’s called myTreat, and it’s the newest evolution in geo-location social networks, helping people show appreciation for others, accept gifts, make friends or even date.
Newly launched My Treat is a little like FourSquare in that treats are tied to an actual location, presumably a retail store. People with the app can locally broadcast their location and the treat they’d like to give or the treat they’d like to get. Their messages are visible to anyone else with myTreat.
While the app is an obvious way to meet people who like the same things, people could use it for other unconventional purposes. For example a young professional could offer to treat someone to coffee in exchange for career advice.
Where FourSquare and its kind can devolve into chic-locale bragging rights, myTreat offers a deeper incentive to get to know others.
“The goal of myTreat is to get people to go out and meet each other in an efficient and convenient way,” explained Ben Tao, the site’s chief executive. “Right now there isn’t a quick or spontaneous way to meet new people to explore your local surroundings.”
As part of the app’s launch, Tao invited people to send in videotaped marketing ideas, assembled into a collection which can only be described…as…a…treat.
Treat. Yo. Self.