GyPSii, the world´s leading geo-location and social networking
service provider for mobile phones and Internet devices, received
highly sought after industry acclaim at this year´s Mobile World
Congress in Barcelona, when it was a winner in the NAVTEQ LBS
Challenge, a contest in which over 300 companies competed.
The award coincided with GyPSii´s live launch at the event,
following a three month public beta trial with users worldwide. The
honour further positions GyPSii as the leading player in the emerging
mobile social networking and LBS market.
The worldwide contest, which has established a reputation as the
premier event in the location-based services (LBS) industry,
challenges application developers to build innovative location-based
services which work with mobile phones and/or wireless handheld
devices using dynamic positioning technology and NAVTEQ maps.
Over 316 companies registered for this year´s Challenge globally,
of which twelve advanced to the final judging in the European
division. The finalists represented a broad spectrum of wireless
applications and were selected based on commercial feasibility,
functionality, ease of use and design. The final judging panel, which
included executives from Autodesk, Deutsche Telekom, GPS and Co,
Innovacom, Nokia, O2, Telecom Italia, Truffle Ventures, Vodafone, and
WebMobility, based their decisions on the same key criteria.
Nokia has globally sponsored the Challenge for the third
consecutive year and together with Autodesk in 2008.
"This has been a very exciting time for GyPSii," said Dan Harple,
CEO of GyPSii. "In September 2007 we signaled our intent to become the
leading global platform for the convergence of search, location and
personal content as a new form of geo-social networking. Winning a
NAVTEQ LBS Challenge award is satisfying because of the intense
competition, coupled with the expertise of the panel of
industry-leading judges. It means a lot to our whole team."
He continued; "We are now recognised as the preeminent industry
player with a rapidly growing global GyPSii community. We have
visitors from more than 55 countries and we continue to lay down our
global footprint across multiple handsets, geographies and affinity
communities with major strategic partnerships worldwide. People can
expect to hear more significant news from GyPSii in the coming
months."
GyPSii generated considerable industry buzz at the Mobile World
Congress. CNN´s on-the-ground reporter, Adrian Finighan interviewed Mr
Harple and posted on his CNN blog that GyPSii is: "a mobile social
networking platform which, I´m willing to bet, will soon be as big a
phenomenon as Facebook. Bigger, perhaps."
(http://edition.cnn.com/exchange/blogs/in.the.field/2008/02/gadget
-addicts-playground.html) (Due to its length, this URL may need to be
copied/pasted into your Internet browser´s address field. Remove the
extra space if one exists.)
In February, GyPSii made a series of major announcements,
significantly increasing its global presence. In China, GyPSii
announced partnerships with China Unicom, one of the two mobile
operators in China with more than 150 million subscribers and Shanghai
Rannuo to launch its GyPSii service for the 2008 Olympic Games in
Beijing. Additional to this was the news of GyPSii´s partnership with
Chinese device manufacturer Dopod to provide a range of location-based
information and services to members of its Dopod Club community.
GyPSii also moved into India, the world´s second largest and
fastest growing mobile market, and announced an agreement with
Broadway Pvt. Ltd. (www.broadwayindia.in/), to offer the full suite of
GyPSii services to India´s 233 million mobile subscribers.
The GyPSii application is already fully compatible with Windows
Mobile phones, the Blackberry range from RIM and Nokia´s flagship
consumer smartphones. GyPSii recently announced web support for
Apple´s iPhone and continues to add new devices on a regular basis.
As well as extending its product range, GyPSii has also reached
beyond English speaking markets and is available in ten languages
including Korean, Russian and two forms of Chinese.
To sign up to GyPSii users can visit the company´s website
(www.gypsii.com) or from a phone browser at http://gypsii.com/m.
About GyPSii
GyPSii is the market-leading mobile lifestyle application,
connecting people, places and communities across networks and devices.
GyPSii provides a geo-location social networking platform and services
for mobile, web & set-top box devices, and is headquartered in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. (www.gypsii.com).
(C) 2008 GyPSii Inc. All rights reserved.
About NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge
First launched in North America in October 2003, the Global LBS
Challenge is focused on driving the development and visibility of
innovative navigation solutions for wireless devices. From wireless
business applications to sports, travel and security, integrating the
accuracy and richness of NAVTEQ digital map data facilitates the
timely evolution of the next wave LBS using global positioning
satellite (GPS) technology. Industry validation of the Global LBS
Challenge for the category overall encouraged NAVTEQ to host the
judging and presentations for the first time in Europe, North America
and Asia this year.
