Discover cities via a game, and win rewards too!

Mojostreet.com, a city-based startup, officially launched its location-based mobile game today. Christened Mojostreet, the product is a free-to-download real world game, friend finder, city guide, social network and loyalty rewards -- all rolled into one app for smartphones like BlackBerry, Nokia, iPhone and Android devices.

"The game witnessed more than 18,000 downloads and check-ins across 422 cities globally in 2 weeks of the beta launch. We expect this number of downloads to touch 100,000 by January 2012," says Kalyan Manyam, founder and chief executive officer of Mojostreet.

The excitement of this location-based mobile game begins with the players checking into places they visit. With every check-in, players earn mojo dollars using which they can virtually own real-world properties and start collecting mojo rent from other players. Check-ins will also increase the value of the property and networth of players.

"Players will be treated with surprise rewards and special offers for checking in at participating merchant locations," notes Manyam. "Currently, Mojostreet players can check into more than 5.5 million geo-tagged locations and can win check-in rewards from 150 brands across 1,250 locations in India."

He says the app also helps players to discover their cities through the gaming format wherein the recommendation to discover a new place is given by other players. Players get to know where their friends are playing the game from and get to see where they can get check-in rewards. They can also connect Mojostreet to their Facebook and Twitter accounts to share their discoveries and game achievements making the game socially-viral.

"We, however, added a privacy option (invisible or visible to all), leaving the decision to the players whether to share details of their check-ins to their friends or not," Manyam says. The whole idea of creating the app is to make a "real impact" for not only players but also for businesses.

Currently, Mojostreet, with 30 members, is looking at having 100 people across its centres in Delhi, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai centres by end-2012. Early next year, it plans to foray into the Southeast Asian markets.

Mojostreet, which received $350,000 (Rs 1.8 crore now) funding from Microsoft India former managing director Srini Koppolu and NVidia India managing director J A Chowdary, is now in the process of closing the second round of funding to fuel its growth plans.

"At present," Manyam says, "we are experimenting with different revenue models including monthly subscriptions from merchants and revenue for each lead-generation to the merchants. We are expecting revenues of over Rs 1 crore in the next one year."