mattroberts.com

One of things I do before an Ottawa DemoCamp is checkout the sites and products of the presenting companies. While I could do this at the camp I always find it better to watch the presenter and get a feel for what they find cool about their site. I generally don’t comment on the blog here beforehand. (well boo to rules)

On the list of companies I was looking forward to seeing (beyond Aydins new website) is LoyaltyMatch.com

LoyaltyMatch is  essentially a loyalty points swapping site. Think a mix of ebay and points.com which is pretty cool idea.

Matt Walcorf from Kitchener Record, has a better way of explaining the transaction process and idea:

It works this way: Say Dick wants an iPod Shuffle for $50. An alert appears on the user pages of anyone who has enough points or miles in a rewards plan to buy the iPod.

One of those people, Jane, agrees to cash in 15,000 Aeroplan miles in exchange for Dick’s $50. Jane then either asks Aeroplan to send an iPod to Dick’s house or has the device shipped to her and sends it to Dick herself.

Everyone wins: Dick gets an iPod, Jane gets cash, LoyaltyMatch gets a $1.99 fee from each party and Air Canada gets to remove the cash value of the points from the liabilities on its balance sheet, Ball explains.

Aeroplan is not involved in the process. The system depends on users to be honest about how many points they have and to fulfil their obligations to each other.

Mike Ball their CTO just pinged me to let me know that they’re in the running to win a slot to pitch at the AlwaysOn (Vator.tv) Venture Summit - East 2008 Competition in Boston on April 8th. Mikes  looking for some help getting the from their current second place standing to first (and thus to Boston). So Click on this link and spend two minutes signing up to help a Canadian web 2.0 startup go get some attention from our American cousins down south