I was pointed to an interesting mobile service earlier last week named MoVoxx. The describe themselves as the “first localized mobile alerts platform that extends traditional static advertising offers to a dynamic mobile network.” What on Earth does that mean…

What it means

MoVoxx will send your phone a SMS text message every week with coupons aimed at your locality. In other words, residents of San Francisco will get coupons and alerts to those things which they like in San Francisco. For example, you can call an 800 number and get alerts to the ‘Nightlife’ category which will alert you to bar specials, band performances, etc.

The downside is…

They just launched last week so there aren’t many cities served by MoVoxx yet. If you think about it you’d realize why: “old media” has been the traditional provider of coupons (like advertising). For MoVoxx to work, they need the partnership of newspapers. As of right now the service is limited to San Francisco and San Jose (with Nightlife and Dining available, respectively). Over time I hope to see this service grow.

Opt-in coupons?

This is really a perfect model for people much like myself (young, heavy cell-phone users, student, disposable income). I simply choose what I want to find out about and it comes to me. I’m lazy. I don’t even go through the ‘Campus Cash’ coupon book because there are so many and I know 99% of them are useless to me.

On the other hand, if I had the option to pick ‘dining in 80302’ and I got a text-message saying there’s a buy-one-get-one-free deal at Domino’s I’m most likely going to order that pizza. Cellfire (another opt-in but software-based coupon provider) has seen a 20% redemption rate whereas most coupons only see 1%.

Bottom line

I hope that MoVoxx finds a lot of great partners looking to expand their coupon reach. Right now the service is limited but the future holds great potential.