1Xtra, the BBC's cutting-edge digital broadcast channel for urban music, today announced the launch of its UK Drum & Bass tour. Showcasing the genre’s finest talent, the tour visits key UK cities every day this week, ending in Bristol on the 18th March. Through the BBC's partnership with Mobile Commerce, the UK's foremost mobile telecom content facilitator, and its relationship with Multimap.com, one of the world’s leading online mapping providers, listeners are able to track the progress of the 1Xtra tour bus around the country on a map via WAP on mobile phones or on the web.

Mobile Commerce is responsible for monitoring the current location of the tour using its unique location-based search technology. Multimap then delivers a content-rich, interactive map, pinpointing the location of the bus, plus a log of its previous locations, to the mobile phone and computer screens of interested users via the BBC’s website.  

The appointment of Mobile Commerce and Multimap.com for this project follows the huge success of a similar tracking project delivered by these companies for the bbc.co.uk to specify the location of Chris Moyles during his Red Nose Rally in 2005. 

Steve Page, CEO of Mobile Commerce, said: "We are delighted that Mobile Commerce has become a significant partner in this project for the second consecutive year. This is another example of the growing market for location-based search systems, which are increasingly being incorporated into companies’ marketing and promotional strategies. This specific service, developed for the BBC, is one of a number of bespoke packages that Mobile Commerce has recently developed for clients and underlines our commitment to developing and executing creative and viable solutions for the mobile and broadcast sectors."

Sean Phelan, founder and chairman of Multimap.com, stated: “We are pleased to be working with Mobile Commerce to enable music enthusiasts to track BBC1’s Drum & Bass tour on a map via the internet and their mobile phones. We have been working with Mobile Commerce for some time to offer organisations and businesses this immensely valuable marketing and sales tool, which extends their relationship with their clients well beyond traditional channels. Feedback on the immediacy, ease-of-use and indeed usefulness of this service has been positive, and we’re happy to offer 1Xtra devotees all the associated advantages throughout this week.”

About Mobile Commerce

Founded in 1999, Mobile Commerce is now the UK’s most successful developer and facilitator of content search solutions for the UK mobile telecommunications industry.

 

Mobile Commerce has provided mobile local search solutions, which allow users to access information, relating to their specific locations throughout the UK. This utility has been developed via a number of strategic partnerships with companies such as Thomson, Multimap, The Press Association and The AA, and provides information on a comprehensive range of local services.

A growing element of Mobile Commerce’s core business model is the development of monetised search using paid listings. Working with Overture, Mobile Commerce now offer a monetised Mobile Search solution connecting mobile users with advertisers. This generates additional revenue for the network operators through off-portal traffic and gives advertisers distribution.

Mobile Commerce is now providing content and creative services to all major UK networks, over SMS, WAP, 3G and i-mode, and is at the forefront of developing innovative packages that will be instrumental in driving additional revenue streams for network and brand partners.

About Multimap

Multimap is one of the world’s leading providers 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, New Zealand and Australia; road maps of the world; door-to-door travel directions; aerial photographs; links to location information; and services such as hotel, restaurant and entertainment booking. The public site attracts over 10 million unique users, registers more than 180 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, as well as in The Sunday Times Microsoft Tech Track 100 league of fastest-growing unquoted UK technology companies for the third year running.