Brands Now Compete On SCVNGR With Builder Profiles

BOSTON, MA–(Marketwire – October 12, 2010) –  We all love points, right? And we all know that more points are better than fewer points. But, generally speaking, points are for people who play games. Well, what about points for people who build games? Or, in this case, what about points for the 1000+ brands, universities and businesses collectively building one massive game…what we call the game layer on top of the world? Sound cool? We think so, too.

What if national brands like the Boston Celtics and National Geographic could showcase all of the AWESOME stuff they are building with location-based services to their communities? What if those brands could compete against one another for who has the highest social score? And how is all this possible? (And what the heck is a social score, anyway?) Say hello to Builder Profiles on SCVNGR.

Starting today, anyone who builds on SCVNGR is not only adding to the game layer and engaging their community like they’ve done since the beginning of time (i.e. four months ago), but they’re also showing the world where to play their awesome challenges and unlock their cool rewards on SCVNGR via their shiny new Builder Profile. Yes indeed. All that, mixed with a healthy dose of competition — pitting builders on SCVNGR against one another for the highest social score.

Simply put, users on SCVNGR can now choose whether to display their player activity (what they’ve been up to) or their builder activity (what they’ve built) on their SCVNGR profile. As the game layer on top of the world, SCVNGR’s community can both play *and* build, but until now, those who mainly built had no unified way to show off the incredible content they’d created. That changes today.

Builder Profiles on SCVNGR are the equivalent of any traditional brand page, but on location-based social steroids. That’s right. Location-based social steroids.

“SCVNGR is more than just a game. It’s a game and a game engine. Our goal is to build the game layer on top of the world, and to have everyone build it with us,” said Seth Priebatsch, Chief Ninja of SCVNGR. “The whole point of Builder Profiles is to offer the same type of pride and identity to the builders of the game layer as we offer to the players. There’s no one else out there that even comes close to the level of openness and engagement that we’re creating by letting the whole world participate in building out this ecosystem with us.”

Here’s how it works: unlike user profiles, these new pages display all the great stuff people are building, rather than playing. So companies who build on SCVNGR — from AT&T, National Geographic, Zipcar, NFL teams, hundreds of universities, the Boston Celtics and retailers like Journeys, Hot Topic and Modell’s down to the hundreds of small businesses — now have SCVNGR Builder Profiles to highlight where they’ve built their thousands of challenges and rewards.

And, to introduce just a tad of competition, SCVNGR has retooled its pointing system to enable users to earn points when they check-in or complete challenges (like before) but also when people do the challenges they’ve created. Now the 1000+ institutions building on SCVNGR are rewarded for the great content they’re creating. Better challenges and better rewards = more players playing = more points for your brand. Think of these points as the first real-world metric for social engagement — the social score for how engaging the content you’ve created in the game layer is.

To claim your business and start a Builder Profile on SCVNGR, visit www.scvngr.com and hop to it!

About SCVNGR
SCVNGR is a game. Playing is simple: Go places. Do challenges. Earn points! You’ll unlock real-world rewards and share where you are and what you’re up to with your friends on SCVNGR, Facebook and Twitter. SCVNGR is played via a free iPhone & Android app. But playing SCVNGR is only half of it. Individuals, enterprises and small businesses build on SCVNGR by adding custom challenges and rewards at their locations. SCVNGR is funded by Google Ventures and Highland Capital Partners. Visit www.scvngr.com to learn more.