13 January 2005

Find and Seek Gets a Makeover

Mobile Commerce hosts Vodafone’s ’Find and Seek’ service

Mobile Commerce today announced that it has updated and extended the Vodafone Live! ‘Find and Seek’ service as well as launching a 3G version, which features Multimap’s content-rich maps. The updates allow Vodafone customers to organise activities from cosying up to Tom Cruise in their preferred cinema, to locating a sports bar to watch the world cup qualifiers – all direct from their mobile phone. In total, Mobile Commerce has enhanced the ‘Find and Seek’ offering with an additional 31 services ranging from clubbing information to hotel reservations.

The service, available to 3G customers, is a very visual experience. Users who select ‘Find and Seek’ from the Live! menu are presented with a map based on their current location. Users are then presented with a list of five service types in the vicinity. The selection of services presented to users is dependent upon the time of day so, in the evening services include bars, restaurants and cinemas, whereas services promoted during the day include services like coffee shops. From this screen, users select the service they require and are then provided with more details. So, for example, if they wish to see a film, they select ‘cinema.’ The service then locates the nearest cinema and advises the user of show times and prices for the latest release. To help users who are having trouble choosing between films, the service also provides access to reviews and even trailers, bringing 3G customers closer than ever before to their favourite stars of the big screen.

“’Find and Seek’ has proved to be an exceptionally popular Vodafone Live! service. Our customers really value having access to a wide variety of information relating to social activities like comedy clubs and clubbing guides. ‘Find and Seek’ allows them view all the information that they require at their finger tips. Being able to view venues’ exact whereabouts on a detailed map is signalled by users as a particularly useful tool, as location is frequently a key decision-making factor when it comes to entertainment decisions,” said Al Russell, Head of Content Services, Vodafone UK.

“’Find and Seek,’ enhanced with 3G, will provide users with rich images and content to allow them to make a more informed decision about which bar, restaurant or club they want to go to. Through our partnership with Mobile Commerce, we recently extended the number of content providers supplying data to ‘Find and Seek’ so now our customers have access to more information than ever before! An additional plus for us is that Mobile Commerce has co-ordinated and managed these new relationships on our behalf,” Russell continued.

Vodafone customers who don’t have 3G handsets can still access the new content and services which deliver a dynamic and engaging service to users. For example, when logging onto the ‘Eat’ section, customers can choose from special offers, city eats and local restaurants. They can drill down further to select a particular cuisine, pricing option, restaurant opening times and other facilities. The user can then select a restaurant and access walking directions of how to get there.

Content on ‘Find and Seek’ is now supplied by ten different content providers including Itchy, Toptable, Press Association, Ticketmaster, FilmNight, Active Hotels and Ents24, providing users with a more diverse range of services. The ‘Find and Seek’ service is hosted and delivered to users via Mobile Commerce’s content application platform.

“We are delighted and proud to host the enhanced ‘Find and Seek’ service that provides users with a premier service. 3G represents an exciting time for mobile services and, as a mobile aggregator, we strive to take the hassle out of delivering content for both providers and network operators. Hosting and delivering ‘Find and Seek’ demonstrates our expertise in managing relationships with network and content providers both on a technical and commercial level,” commented Steve Page, CEO, Mobile Commerce. “Not only are we managing these partnerships, but we are also integrating, formatting and updating all the content that Vodafone ‘Find and Seek’ users access. Our content application platform enables us to provide Vodafone with valuable statistics relating to usage so that they can easily see which services are popular with users and which are not. This allows them to constantly evolve ‘Find and Seek.’”

About Multimap

Multimap is Europe's leading provider of mapping and location-based services. The company delivers more online maps, point-to-point driving directions and geo-spatial ("where's my nearest?") searches to more companies than any other supplier in Europe. All services are offered on mobile, PDA, kiosk, and interactive TV platforms and in multiple languages.

The public website, www.multimap.com, provides a range of free, useful services to assist with everyday life. Key features include street-level maps of Europe, USA, Canada and Australia; road maps of the world; door-to-door travel directions; aerial photographs; weather forecasts; links to location information; and services such as hotel, restaurant and entertainment booking. The public site attracts over 7.3 million unique users, registers more than 140 million page impressions every month, and is one of the top 10 most visited websites in the UK. Multimap recently featured in The Sunday Times Fast Track 100 league table of fastest-growing unquoted UK companies across all sectors.

About Mobile Commerce

Mobile Commerce, founded in 1999, acts as a mobile content aggregator and distributor, enabling companies to deliver content to mobile users. This is possible through Mobile Commerce’s best of breed mobile content delivery platform.

Mobile Commerce is also the UK's leading provider of location-based services. Mobile Commerce works with content partners, brands and network operators to develop mobile services that are rich in content and, if relevant, location aware.

Mobile Commerce supplies mobile content and location-based products to the customers of leading wireless network operators/portals (including Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile online and Orange), brands, media owners, content owners and any organisation seeking to provide value-added information to their customers and employees.

Services are network and handset independent and can be accessed via voice, WAP, SMS, MMS & 3G. The company uses a range of tools to identify the caller's location and then employs extensive databases, sophisticated search mechanisms and state-of-the-art mapping technology to provide accurate and relevant information about services available in the caller's current or intended location.

Mobile Commerce’s products are ideal for those companies wishing to deliver products to the mobile market in a timely manner. Partners can either work with Mobile Commerce directly in order to develop tailored technology solutions or utilise Mobile Commerce’s application programming interface (API) in order to develop their own application.