Colfax DA unveils new smartphone app

In another effort to get locals shopping downtown, the Colfax Downtown Association has released a new mobile phone application that can offer incentives to shoppers.

Colfax Insider was released recently in the Google Play and Apple App stores and is available on Android and iOS devices.

“Colfax Insider is the app that rewards you for exploring Colfax, Washington, the Heart of the Palouse,” the app description reads. “The more places you visit around Colfax, the more points you can earn and redeem for goods or services at rewards locations.”

The app also includes a description of Colfax.

The app directs users to different locations throughout Colfax, with each location earning individuals points for visiting locations. Also included at each location is a description of the place, with hours of operation, the address and phone number, as well as links to websites, email addresses and social media pages.

“You can get points just for going around town,” said Valoree Gregory, Colfax unified executive director. “We're going to promote this, and the businesses are going to promote it.”

Users need to create an account on the app to be able to collect points.

“I'll be able to see their names and where they're from,” said Gregory, noting that it will help her to know how many people from out of town or the area are looking at and using the application.

“It just kind of helps us to see who is coming to town. It seems pretty good.”

Businesses determine how many points it takes to be able to redeem points for a prize, as well as what the redemption is worth.

“Each business chooses how many points to give away,” said Gregory. “And when you're ready to redeem your points, you tell the cashier, 'hey, I want to use my points.'”

When this happens, an individual will press the redeem points button in the application, and then a code will generate, which they can share with the business for the redemption. Most of the redemptions include discounts on purchases.

The application was developed by Tim Fry, president of 468 Communications in Seattle. Fry assisted a middle school class in an endeavor titled “ProjectWA” last school year. It helped students at the school to develop an application where they documented places around the state considered to be endangered.

The application developed with that project documented the places and their respective histories, and Fry and his family spent the summer traveling to the locations the students included in the application. In this area, they visited St. Ignatius Hospital, the Perkins House, the LaCrosse rock houses, Palouse Falls, Steptoe Butte and Washington State University.

“He's the one who invented the app,” said Gregory. “He's really into revitalizing small towns.”

Gregory said the application is user friendly, and it is also easy to update.

“He made it so simple for me to build and to change,” she said.

If businesses want to tweak their rewards or how many points an individual earns for visiting, all they need to do is let Gregory know, and she will be able to update it.

“It takes me like three seconds to change that,” she said.

Gregory said she is also in the process of tweaking it right now. She has noticed some bugs, such as the GPS being slightly off.

“I went to the golf course and couldn't get my points because the pin wasn't in the right place,” she said.

The app allows for up to 40 slots to be filled.

“We've started it with the basics of downtown,” said Gregory. “Also with things maybe tourists would stop at. We're using it as a sightseeing tool.”

Gregory also said the app does limit how many times a day an individual can collect points from places. This will prevent repeatedly going to a place and clicking to redeem the points. Some businesses, she said, limit point collecting to once a day. Coffee shops cap off at twice a day.

“Some people like to go for coffee more than once,” Gregory noted.

At sites such as the Codger Pole, Steptoe Butte and Palouse Falls, the point collection is limited to once a week.

“That will be so that you can't just drive and get points like in Pokémon,” said Gregory.

The app is available for free download in the Apple App Store and on Google Play. Gregory said she will soon be posting the application information to the Explore Colfax Facebook page to allow more people to be aware of it. She also noted that the application is being used in Dayton, and Pullman plans to be utilizing it soon as well.

“We're the first in this area.”