China's Leading Location-based Social App Jiepang Partners with Nokia to Promote NFC Check-ins

HONG KONG, Aug. 24, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- China's leading location-based social app, Jiepang is teaming up with Nokia to promote NFC check-ins, a faster and verified way to "check in" and share locations with friends using a special Jiepang app preloaded on the newly launched Nokia smartphones: Nokia 600, Nokia 700 and Nokia 701, which are NFC-enabled and run the latest operating system Symbian Belle.

(Photo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110824/AQ57598)

Nokia yesterday held a global launch event in Hong Kong and invited a hundred guests to get a hands-on experience of Symbian Belle and the respective new smartphones, which emphasize ease of use, speed and fun. These benefits have been perfectly echoed by NFC check-ins as guests could instantly check-in to designated venues by swiping the NFC-enabled Nokia smartphones across Jiepang posters.

"We're grateful to team up with Nokia to explore more convenient and authentic ways to share locations with friends," said Jiepang CEO, David Liu.  "NFC check-ins has a lot of user benefits. And we think our merchant partners will feel really comfortable rewarding check-ins, as they will know for sure that Jiepang users are actually physically in their stores."

Jiepang today also announces plans to send NFC window stickers to merchant partners in six cities of the Greater China Region, which include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Taipei and Hong Kong. Consumers will be able to check-in and share locations simply by swiping an NFC-enabled smartphone over the Jiepang sticker.

"Jiepang is really a good social and customer loyalty solution that can best leverage Nokia smartphones and Symbian Belle. We are happy to work with Jiepang in bringing a new NFC service to everyday life," said Hubert Huang, Head of Ecosystem Developer Experience, Greater China at Nokia.

Jiepang is the first location-based service in Greater China to use NFC for check-ins. Previously, in April 2011, Jiepang distributed over one thousand NFC stickers at the Strawberry Music Festival in Beijing, one of the largest music festivals in China, to invite users to check in at the event as well as nearby venues partnered with the special NFC activity. Users were rewarded discounts and gifts for their verified NFC check-ins.

On a separate note, Jiepang has filmed a short romantic story about a young man leveraging Jiepang's NFC check-ins to propose to his girlfriend. The video can be found at http://vimeo.com/28067168

About Jiepang

Jiepang (jiepang.com) is a location-based social mobile app that helps friends share where they are offline and in real-time. By "checking in" with Jiepang's iPhone, Android, or other mobile application, users share that they've arrived at specific venues, as well as share tips, photos, and comments around those venues. Merchants and brands can use Jiepang to reach, engage, and learn about their customers in both the offline and online worlds. To date, over 300 brands have partnered with Jiepang including Starbucks, McDonalds, Nike, Louis Vuitton and more. Jiepang is available for download in the iPhone App Store and Android Market, as an HTML5 or WAP mobile website at Jiepang.com, and also preloaded on all new HTC, Sony Ericsson, Nokia and other smartphone brands in China. Jiepang is headquartered in Beijing, with offices in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Taipei, and other cities as it serves its over 1M users in the major cities of greater China region.

Latest updates about Jiepang are available from the official blog and Sina Weibo (Chinese language):

http://we.jiepang.com/

http://t.sina.com/jiepang/

SOURCE Pat Meier Associates, Inc.