SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - March 22, 2010) - JiWire, the leading mobile audience media company that reaches over 20 million unique users per month across its media channel, today announced version 2.0 of its popular Wi-Fi Finder iPhone application. Five million people have already downloaded the original application, reflecting the growing popularity of connecting to Wi-Fi via a mobile device with today's on-the-go audience. Over 350,000 new users download the app each month, placing Wi-Fi Finder among the top 10 most downloaded travel apps in the Apple Store, and making it one of the largest location-based applications in the market.
According to JiWire's latest Mobile Audience Insights report, 56 percent of people use a mobile device to connect in public Wi-Fi locations. The number of Wi-Fi enabled devices continues to grow, with over 486 million new smartphones, laptops, netbooks, e-readers and converged devices, like Apple's forthcoming iPad, hitting the market this year, according to Morgan Stanley.
Enhanced and new features enable JiWire's Wi-Fi Finder to continue to address this shift towards greater mobility and give people multiple ways to consume content on the go:
- Share your location with friends via Facebook and Twitter
- Find free or paid Wi-Fi locations near you
- Search for locations even when offline
Marketers are being challenged to adapt how they reach and engage this quickly growing mobile audience in relevant and useful ways. JiWire helps marketers bridge the gap between digital, mobile and location-based advertising.
"With over 5 million downloads and almost 2 million sessions per month, we have a robust audience who helped us design the new version, and they clearly said they wanted to do more with sharing their location information," says Kevin McKenzie, founder of JiWire. "We've also seen increasing interest from our advertising partners to extend their reach to this on-the-go mobile audience through the app, allowing us to expand our advertising solutions and reflecting the market demand for more location-based advertising opportunities."
JiWire's global hotspot directory is built from both strategic partnerships with service providers like AT&T and Boingo, and user submitted hotspot locations. Users can now submit new locations directly from the app, as well as keep a list of favorite locations or saved searches. People can also post their location and leave notes for friends from public Wi-Fi locations through integration with Facebook and Twitter. For users of Wi-Fi only devices like the iPod Touch, an offline database can be downloaded to the device, enabling searches for Wi-Fi locations even when not connected.
The JiWire Wi-Fi Finder 2.0 application is available for the iPhone and iPod touch today. Visit http://bit.ly/bv4bVO to download the free app.
About JiWire
JiWire is the leading mobile audience media company, delivering advertising across premier locations and devices. JiWire's breakthrough advertising medium enables marketers to reach an influential mobile demographic at the point-of-connection. JiWire's portfolio of blue-chip advertisers, combined with its market-proven delivery platform and registry of hotspot locations, enables wireless broadband networks and device manufacturers to leverage advertising as a currency for wireless Internet access. For more information, please visit www.jiwire.com or call (415) 877-4711.
Contact Information:
CONTACT:
Adrian Richardson
Edelman for JiWire
+1 650-762-2949 (office)
arichardson@ar-edelman.com