Trolling Dianping 3: Take to the Streets
Thus far we've looked at features built into web versions of Dianping.com, but it's time to take things mobile. Our third installment of the "Trolling Dianping" series aims to unlock the potential of the smartphone app.
Dianping started out as a standard website, but the company's mobile division is becoming increasingly important for the company. The number of users of its mobile apps jumped tenfold year-over-year to 18 million people in the fourth quarter of 2011. Now that China has become the world's largest smartphone market, expect those numbers to continue to accelerate.
iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Symbian versions of the Dianping app are available, but we're going to focus on the iPhone app.
When you open up the app, you'll see the following categories [with my translations in red]:
Tapping the "Nearby" icon calls up a page that lets you filter the types of businesses you're looking for in the area. You'll also be able to see how many deals, coupons and recommended restaurants are close by.
"Search" is fairly straightforward. If you're inputting the Chinese name of a restaurant, you can type your letters using the English keyboard and it will register as pinyin. One nice feature is the ability to call up areas of town and then switch to map mode. It's definitely handy to have if you're the type who likes exploring restaurants on the fly. The "Check-in" section of the app allows users to earn points for visiting restaurants. If you earn enough points, you'll level up and can earn VIP discounts from select venues.
The app also has access to the coupon service we discussed last week. Implementation is a tad unwieldy since you'll still have to text the deal to yourself, but it's worth the effort for the right deals. You can filter coupons by distance and category.
The group deal industry is still in a "Wild West" phase here in China; at one point, there were more than 5,000 Groupon clones in existence. Having already established itself as a local Internet giant with its review platform, Dianping has risen to the top of the group. Dianping boasted last month that it had saved customers RMB 2.1 billion via group deals in 2011. Purchasing the offers is substantially more involved than the coupon deals, so we'll spare you the gritty details. Those of you who are both adventurous and thrifty might want to look into the service, though.
The "Rankings" section of the app consolidates some of the "Best of…" lists that we covered in our first Trolling Dianping post. You can use it to keep tabs on hot restaurants this week, the highest-ranked establishments and even the city's most popular ice cream. "Recently viewed" is self-explanatory. As for "Profile" and "More," you probably won't need them unless you're planning on setting up an account and posting reviews.
Hopefully, you've got enough information here to pluck Dianping's low-hanging fruit via the app. If you're hoping to delve deeper on your own but aren't yet literate in Mandarin, I'd recommend using Pleco's optical character recognizer add-on module (USD 14.99) to do some of the translation heavy-lifting for you. Alternatively, if you're hoping to avoid reading Mandarin altogether, check out the US-based Foodspotting app to get alternate location-based dish recommendations.
Photos: Physorg.com, Josh Ong
