Zach Lyon Creative · 2014–2020 · Travel & tourism
Joinify
A real-time content platform for destination apps. Walking tours triggered by Bluetooth beacons, deals at local merchants, and visitor guides that destinations could update instantly, without waiting on an app store.
- Role
- Product ownership, UX & UI design, front-end development, beacon deployment
- Platforms
- iOS & Android apps, progressive web apps, admin CMS
- Clients
- Virginia City Commission on Tourism, Sierra State Parks Foundation
- Stack
- Angular, Vue, Ionic, Capacitor, Firebase, Bluetooth beacons
- 6 years of destination apps in service, 2014–2020
- 0 app store releases needed to change content
- Beacons guiding walking tours and unlocking merchant deals
- 1 platform white-labeled for each destination brand
The problem
Around 2014, every destination wanted an app. Most found out the hard way that apps were expensive to update. Every new event, tour or deal meant a developer, a new build and days of app store review. Mobile content was on lockdown, so most destination apps went stale within a season.
The platform
Joinify started on a whiteboard as a content management system tuned for tourism. Destinations edit tours, deals, events and listings in a web dashboard, and every connected phone updates in real time, with push notifications for anything urgent. One platform, white-labeled for each destination's brand, sold business-to-business-to-consumer through agencies and visitor bureaus.
Visit Virginia City
Our launch client, Virginia City, Nevada, had an abandoned app and a town full of history. With the Virginia City Commission on Tourism and RAD Strategies, we rebuilt it as a pocket guide. GPS-triggered audio walking tours tell the stories behind the buildings. Bluetooth beacons around town unlock QR-code deals at local merchants. Event RSVPs and saved itineraries round it out. The goal wasn't to repeat the website. It was to get visitors walking into shops.
Adapting when the ground shifted
Tourism staff managed everything themselves, including each beacon's location and whether it triggered a deal or a tour. Midway through development, Google retired the Eddystone-URL beacon protocol the app relied on to broadcast links. We changed course to push notifications and in-app messages. It worked, and it taught us to never build on a single vendor's protocol without a fallback.
Tahoe Parks
Sierra State Parks Foundation used Joinify to launch Tahoe Parks, a guide to the parks, trails and historic tours around Lake Tahoe. We extended the data model with a field guide for identifying local birds, plants and wildlife. When app store rules made in-app donations impractical, we linked to the foundation's website instead. In 2019 we redesigned the app as a progressive web app.
Results
- Destinations ran and updated their own apps in real time, without app store releases
- Saved itineraries and favorites built opt-in email audiences for destination marketers
- Visitors used the deals, tours and events, giving the town a new channel of engagement
- When the pandemic shut down travel in 2020, the destination apps were retired with it, and the lessons carried straight into what's next
What's next: Joinify, hyper-local
The next Joinify trades tourists for neighbors. It's a hyper-local hub for businesses and community, organized by zip code, now in the lab.
Real-time, still
Businesses and organizers post updates instantly, with no app store in the way.
Map-first
Everything is anchored to a place, from the coffee shop to the trailhead.
Community-moderated
Positive signals over pile-ons, the same approach we used in Trail Sherpa.
Agents behind the scenes
AI agents help local businesses keep listings, events and hours up to date.