Find a Guinness with your Phone

Diageo Japan launched a one-click mobile pub search service called “Guinness Navi” on March 17, 2007, just in time for St. Paddys Day. Guinness Navi location based service allows users to search for nearby Guinness outlets easily with their mobile phone, although the venues are currently restricted to Irish pub search within Tokyo’s 23 wards, it plans to increase its scope to other areas, and to dining bars, local bars and other outlets. The system is compatible with all locational technologies from antenna triangulation cell ID, to GPS, WiFi and direct address input and was developed by Tokyo-based Naviblog Corp.

According to the press release, Guinness Navi is apparently easy to use, tho. we are keen to give it a go just to be sure!, as the user simply scans a QR barcode onto their mobile phone - most folks will just add a shortcut to their fav. menu - in order to reach the service’s top page. The system then reads the user’s location and plots the closest Guinness participating outlets on a mobile map browser-based service requires no downloads, installs or updates.