the GyPSii blog - news and updates from the team at GyPSii

Statistically speaking…

Jeff — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 15:19:32 +0000

It’s been a long while since we have talked about user stats, I thought today it would be a good time to share some good news regarding our user stats. Tuding, the photo sharing app based on the old GyPSii client has reached past 3M users in China, the bulk of our user base congregate in major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Tuding has became the #1 photo sharing app among the 18 – 25 year old, the de facto Chinese “Instagram” if you will.

Weilingdi is the new check-in client launched with Sina early this year, it has already gain and major foothold in the very young LBS/local offering market though cooperation with Sina. The current expansion only covers about 4 cities in China, yet the amount of daily offers and check-in already has earned number of top brands like Nike, Costa Coffee and Nautica to promote their products within Weilingdi. The most interesting stats are on badges, where the top 4 badges given out for check-in are related to food, you know what they say, Chinese love their food!

Till next time – Jeff

Have you SINA me lately?

Jay — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 02:41:18 +0000

Last post I referenced the Counting Crows tune “Have you seen me lately”… as it turns out it was a little unintentional foreshadowing… Last week, our Joint Venture with SINA (Beijing) Information Technology Co., Ltd., whose parent company, Sina Corp. is listed on the US NASDAQ market was completed. As was mentioned in the prior post our two companies have been working closely to deliver the WeiLingDi product (http://vld.sina.com) to market, which launched earlier in the year and continues to make tremendous headway. Now with the completion of the agreement, our Chinese team, GSSH, has “officially” combined forces with the team from SINA to focus on driving the WeiLingDi mobile application to new levels amongst the Sina Weibo user base (+100M) and cultivating the real-time business to mobile consumer channel. Together with Sina we’re extremely focused on providing an unparalleled mobile experience for people on the go and excited about the innovation coming from the team in China… so had I been really clever, I would have wrote “Have you Sina me lately”.

Talk soon -

Jay

Recovering the Satellites

Jay — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 20:10:52 +0000

As I started to write this post I was thinking about a catchy line that might help summarize the gap in any news from GyPSii. For obvious reasons the Counting Crows song “Have you seen me lately“ from the “Recovering the Satellites” popped right to mind. While the title alone might be enough to start the resurgence of our corporate blog post, I got tempted into doing some historical research on the song and found a deeper parallel that applies to GyPSii and the 1996 Counting Crows album… So why not share, right?

According to Internet research (then-Must-be-True), Adam Duritz expressed that the album itself is about catharsis (catha-what?) – a greek word for cleansing or purging – and in some senses the team here feels like thats where GyPSii as a company have been. As an early innovator (2007) in the location and mobile space, GyPSii was anxious to bring our compelling technology (Geo-tagging, Friend Finding, Check-in) to every corner of the world. We’ve had and still continue to have a goal of empowering people across the globe with intuitive apps that connect you and your social graph with the physical world around you. However about a year and a half or so ago we recognized that as much as people may share commonality in mobile and social needs regardless of where we live on the globe – when you layer in location capabilities - its best to immerse yourself in the local markets so you can truly deliver value. With this in mind – that’s where GyPSii and its focus has been. Cleansing our product for local markets and purging distractions from our business, so that we can deliver to you a compelling mobile tool.

I’m proud to say our commitment to this strategy and aligned focus has allowed us to build some great success inside China, our first regional focus area. With the release of our “Tuding” (english translation My Territories) location based photo sharing app and the jointly developed GyPSii/Sina Corporation “WeiLingdi” mobile check-in app – GyPSii users in China are leveraging their mobile device to interact and capture the real world and its rewards like never before. As a result we’ve been receiving some great media accolades and even better feedback to keep innovating on our products.

As we head into the fall of this year – we’re looking to stretch our wings a little bit more and we’re anxious for the release of new GyPSii products for western markets. With the refined product line and the help of right partners we think you’re going to love it as well…

Stay tuned for release details and in the mean time, if you been looking for us, thats where we’ve been lately…

Talk soon -

Jay

gypsii launches new eLingdi website in China

Shane Lennon — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:56:16 +0000

gypsii launched the new eLingdi website in China last week. eLingdi is roughly translated into “my territories” and is the latest iteration from the gypsii platform and our team in China. Chinese consumers can check in, update status and make recommendations on great places to visit, eat and entertain. Local entertainment and food venues reward consumers for their support with special offers and coupons. And gypsii gives virtual rewards to consumers based on their activities with the gypsii Gcoin virtual rewards system.

Here is some of the coverage from local media:

eLingdi is also available on multiple mobile platforms in China – click here and choose your phone platform to download the eLingdi application to your phone.

gypsii TV interview by NetEase News along with Top 4 China internet brand 163

Shane Lennon — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 22:14:21 +0000

gypsii’s Jeff Lin was invited by NetEase Information Technology News to participate in an interview on mobile location based services and social networking. He was joined by top 4 Chinese internet brand 163.com and discussed the business model, consumer behavior and the experiences of building a successful foreign owned company in China. He covered the two main products from gypsii in China eLingdi (MyTerrotries) and the gypsii application (we see in western markets). For access to the interview click here (note: it is in Chinese).

Jeff Lin of gypsii interviewed on QQ Media in Shanghai

Shane Lennon — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 22:02:50 +0000

Jeff Lin SVP & MD of gypsii APAC was interviewed by QQ Media in China last Wed 24th where he answered questions on building a company in China, the right steps to growing a consumer base and some of the different consumer habits between Chinese users and western users when using location based services. To see the interview click here (note: it is in chinese).

gypsii is highlighted at the launch of China Unicom’s Wo Store

Shane Lennon — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:48:26 +0000

Recently China Unicom launched their mobile application store for smartphone applications with a focus on Social Networking and Location Based Services and gypsii was highlighted in the coverage of the launch. Jeff Lin MD for gypsii APAC was quoted saying “location will change everything”.

The latest version of the gypsii application – roughly translated into english is called “my territories” – is available on the Wo Store.

Link to coverage by IDG on the Tencent Technology News and QQ site

GSMA Mobile World Congress showcases gypsii participation at Barcelona 2010

Shane Lennon — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:40:02 +0000

GSMA showcases gypsii as one of their top participants at MWC Barcelona, last February 2010. GyPSii has exhibited at Mobile World Congress for the past three years.

Excerpt: For 2010, GyPSii participated in the inaugural App Planet in Hall 7. App Planet is an ‘event within an event’ that pulls together all the key players in the apps market. More than 20,000 people visited App Planet during the course of the show … “We expected the first App Planet to be a success – it’s an emerging and topical area so we were pleased to see high quantities of visitors,” said Shane Lennon, SVP Strategy & Marketing. “We set up the stand to enable rapid pre-qualification of visitors to ensure our sales and marketing efforts were keenly focussed. “Our most valued visitors, however, were from pre-arranged meetings and subsequent follow-up meetings at the Congress itself, so straight ROI from quantity and quality was higher due to our pre-event efforts.

At the Congress, GyPSii complemented its exhibition presence by participating in two of the Congress Panel Sessions – GyPSii Executive Chairman Dan Harple taking part in the “Trusted Partners for the 2.0 Era” panel discussion, and Shane representing GyPSii on the panel for “App Store Futures: Prospects, Partnerships and Payoff”. “Our panel presence helped us with firming out thought leadership stances around mobile advertising and location-based applications, and took the GyPSii brand inside the Congress programme, reaching delegates that may not have had time to visit the App Planet,” said Shane.

For full version of the GSMA case study please click here.

The team at MWC Barcelona, Feb 2010:

GyPSii supports Bada Phone OS and Samsung lists GyPSii as Featured App

Shane Lennon — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 19:26:41 +0000

This week gypsii rolled out the Bada version of it’s location based social networking application and Samsung promotes GyPSii as a Featured App.

Bada is the Java platform from Samsung and gypsii is one of the first location based and social networking application to support the Bada platform. Samsung is running promotions for gypsii as a Featured App on the Samsung Apps Store across several regions, including China, Latin America, Europe and Africa. Download gypsii for Samsung Wave here.

Below is a screen shot of gypsii running on the Samsung Wave (S8500).

GyPSii Tops Two Million Users

admin — Thu, 20 May 2010 00:52:08 +0000

This week marked a major milestone for the GyPSii team. We surged past two million users! Our team is psyched and we just want to say, “Dank je wel…!”

For us, it’s about more than location. It’s about the vision of a real time mobile web. Only one thing matters to us. Wherever you are, being in what we call the HereNow. That means no matter where your location, delivering relevant cool info about what’s around you, based on who you are and who you know. Creating that content, and sharing it. Search? it’s so 90’s. We say, “Don’t search the Internet, search the Planet!”

I invite you to create your own HereNow and share it. So, go mobile, jump on your bike, share your world, and do it in the HereNow. You were born, you checked in. Now you’re alive, check it out…! Two million people have so far. Come and join us!

Our next-gen GyPSii (w/Twitter support!) is now on Android and in the Apple Appstore. It’s called Tweetsii.

Your.World.In.Real.Time.