Philly: There’s An App For That! Philadelphia Raises Profile As An Interactive City With New Find Your Philly℠ On Scvngr

New cutting-edge mobile experience is first for Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Convention Center

PHILADELPHIA…June 28, 2010…Philadelphia took a big leap forward with its latest “first.” Today, Mayor Michael A. Nutter helped unveil the Find Your Philly℠ mobile experience, built on SCVNGR, at the Independence Visitor Center. Find Your Philly℠ is the official interactive mobile experience for exploring Philadelphia and the expanding Pennsylvania Convention Center. Philadelphia is the first city in the world to use the cutting-edge SCVNGR technology to promote a city and convention center.

“The Find Your Philly℠ mobile application further highlights Philadelphia’s broad appeal as an exciting walkable city,” said Mayor Nutter. “We are excited to work with SCVNGR and our partners to provide another unique opportunity to tell Philadelphia’s multi-faceted story. I encourage everyone to visit FindYourPhilly.com, download the free app, and explore today!”

Available for download on iPhone and Android (search “SCVNGR”), and also playable through SMS enabled devices, Find Your Philly℠ allows visitors and locals to explore Philadelphia in a new, fun way, while it connects the Convention Center with the rest of the city.

Suitable for all ages, the mobile experience features five tours or “treks” focusing on history, arts and culture, science, multicultural Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Convention Center. These treks help tell Philadelphia’s story in a series of high-tech, mobile interactions (users visit sites throughout the city to discover the answers to clues), available across all platforms and all services. Its appeal reaches visitors, convention and meeting attendees, and residents.

Find Your Philly℠ is simple and fun to play.

•    Download the free “SCVNGR” app for iPhone & Android. (BlackBerry app coming soon)
•    Tap the “treks” tab.
•    Pick a trek.
•    Go places. Do challenges. Earn points! And see how you fare against other player.

To play via SMS, text: PhillyArt, PhillyCultural, PhillyScience, PhillyHistory or PAConvctr to 728647.

Find Your Philly℠ on SCVNGR is a collaborative project supported and marketed by the City of Philadelphia, Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau (PCVB), Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority, the Independence Visitor Center Corporation, and dozens of promotional partners.

This latest technological advancement showcases Philadelphia, the nation’s fifth-largest metropolitan area, and introduces Philadelphia to a new and broader visitor audience.  Each year, the Independence Visitor Center and the expanding Pennsylvania Convention Center combine to welcome five million visitors and the app provides a new way to explore the Convention Center, which is expanding by 62 percent when complete in March 2011.

Philadelphia is swaddled in the red, white and blue of our nation’s founding beginning this week, welcoming tens of thousands of visitors during the annual Wawa Welcome America! celebration. The launch of this app, timed with the Independence Day festivities, is expected to reach a wide audience of visitors and residents here to celebrate our country’s freedom in Philadelphia. One lucky explorer will be selected on July 2 to win two VIP tickets to the July 4 Wawa Welcome America! – Life, Liberty & You concert and fireworks on the Parkway, featuring the Goo Goo Dolls.

Another incentive to play this week, the first 1,000 families to download the SCVNGR app will receive a package of Phillybandz wrist bands -- Philadelphia’s version of the popular silly bands.

“Philadelphia’s launch on SCVNGR provides a great chance for us to showcase how SCVNGR can really enhance the tourism experience. As a native of this city, it’s extremely exciting to showcase Philadelphia as the first major city to launch this cutting-edge mobile technology,” said Michael Hagan, chief operating office of SCVNGR, and a Drexel University graduate. “We are very excited to work with the City of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau, Independence Visitor Center, and the other partners to make it possible to explore all this great city has to offer through fun and engaging treks on SCVNGR.”

SCVNGR got its start in a Philadelphia startup incubator called Dream It Ventures, founded by a group of Philadelphia entrepreneurs. Hagan, Philadelphia native, says DreamIt brought him and the then 19-year-old SCVNGR CEO Seth Priebatsch together to get the idea off the ground.

SCVNGR is a game all about going places, doing challenges and learning about your surroundings in a fun and interactive format. SCVNGR is most well-known for their tours, orientations and team-building exercises in museums, universities and businesses across the country.  A recent $4 million Google investment has allowed the SCVNGR team to turn cities internationally, into live game-boards for fun exploration. Philadelphia is the first of these cities.  SCVNGR can be played for free from any mobile phone via iPhone app, Android app or even SMS. SCVNGR is funded by Google Ventures and Highland Capital Partners. Visit www.scvngr.com to learn more.
 
Content and promotional partners include: City of Philadelphia, Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau, Independence Visitor Center, Pennsylvania Convention Center, Center City District, African American Museum in Philadelphia, Philadelphia Chinatown Development, Wawa Welcome America!, College of Physicians, Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, Historic Philadelphia, Inc., City of Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program, Multicultural Affairs Congress, Greater Philadelphia Life Sciences Congress, Philadelphia Sports Congress, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and University City District.

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