'Foursquaropoly' Wins Advertisers' Attention

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If you are one of the founders of "Foursquaropoly," here's your current situation. No official titles, no headquarters, no funding, and no final brand name. And oh yeah, no product - at least not yet. But that hasn't stopped the advertising community from checking in since Thursday, when the mobile app's developers posted the below video about their Monopoly-styled idea.

Deanna McDonald, one of three recent Miami Ad School grads developing the concept, told ClickZ News that ad agencies and developers have inundated her and her co-founders with emails and cell phone calls as they work out of their Manhattan and Brooklyn apartments. She said agencies have inquired about running promotions on the iPhone/Android app, which will be released in the coming months.

"We've had calls from India, London, South America… It's been kind of crazy," she said. "We tweeted about the video once and that's it. We didn't really promote it."

McDonald wouldn't name the agencies that have pinged her team that includes partners Sean Tiraatanakul and Jaclyn Shelton. They are building "Foursquaropoly" on Foursquare's API, just as Zynga and other game developers have launched products on Facebook. The game mechanics will reward users for checking in via Foursquare to places by granting them "money" which can be used to "purchase" locations.

The idea appears to supplant Foursquare's "mayors" with "owners" of locations. However many aspects of the app are still fluid, including the brand name for obvious trademark infringement reasons. Not surprisingly, McDonald and her team eventually envision retailers offering rewards to consumers who check in via their app.

"We imagine companies getting involved," she said. "There can be benefits [to the consumer] for buying the locations."