JiWire has acquired NearbyNow to further accelerate its location-based media platform across mobile.

The companies plan to create a new set of location-based advertising opportunities for major brands. NearbyNow clients include Nike, Levi?s, Hearst, Macy?s and Nordstrom.

?Both JiWire and NearbyNow are in the location-based advertising industry, but we were coming at it from two different angles,? said Scott Dunlap, founder of NearbyNow and vice president of mobile at JiWire, San Francisco. ?JiWire was quickly reaching scale with their aggregation of 30,000-plus Wi-Fi hot spots and mobile ad network, which combined reach over 35 million unique users/month.

?NearbyNow was focused on helping mobile shoppers find and procure products at nearby stores, using real-time inventory acquisition,? he said. ?Combining the two companies allows us to bring the NearbyNow technology to a broader audience.

?You can expect some upcoming announcements of our joint product that will show this.?

NearbyNow enables brands to show users current product catalogues and even whether a product is currently in-stock at a specific nearby store.

JiWire connects advertisers to the mobile audience using a location-based interactive channel.

Mobile plans
JiWire plans to combine its existing location-based advertising platform that runs across Wi-Fi and mobile for devices such as iPads, smartphones and laptops with NearbyNow?s platform to increase ways in which advertisers can reach new local customers at scale and drive in-store conversions.

?This acquisition is in response to advertiser demand,? Mr. Dunlap said. ?In the last year, we have been getting less and less requests for mobile versus display ads, but instead how can I reach millions of consumers with location-relevant ads across all devices?

?This helps us achieve scale that is relevant to national advertisers,? he said.

Location-based technology
The company is currently working on new location-based products that leverage the combined capabilities of both platforms.

Both companies are hoping to achieve a lot from the acquisition, including scale.

?When you look at most location-based mobile solutions like a Foursquare or Gowalla, it is uninteresting to large national advertisers because they just can't reach enough people to move the needle on a big business,? Mr. Dunlap said. ?Sure, advertisers will try these fancy new services, but the renewals just don't happen.

?NearbyNow was quickly scaling beyond 3 million users, but the truth is, we needed to address an order of magnitude larger to address the demand,? he said. ?NearbyNow and JiWire had one big thing in common ? we are about driving new users into a store, more so than checking in existing shoppers.

?That's going to make a big impact with advertisers. JiWire is very impressive with their scale and growth - they take $1 million, ad buys, get 65 percent repeat business, and are growing like crazy. Adding NearbyNow's capabilities will help take it to the next level.?

NearbyNow has 11 employees and JiWire gets access to about 3 million mobile shoppers using applications from brands such as GQ, Brides, Redbook, Cosmopolitan and Seventeen.

?I think location-based advertising and mobile social networking will create the next big technology boom, and it's going to happen in the next 4-5 years,? Mr. Dunlap said. ?Mary Meeker is seeing it too, and has predicted the mobile ad business to explode to $50 billion by 2015, much in thanks to the relevance of location-based advertising.

?The winners will be those who can take the big orders and create impact for their clients, and we're right on track,? he said. ?It's going to be an exciting time.?