Friday, March 28. 2008

Facebook to Focus on Location?

Investments keep pouring in: First $240 million from Microsoft, then $60 million from Hong Kong business mogul Li Ka-Shing and today another $40 million (at least) from Ka-Shing. VentureBeat suggests that Ka-Shing's company Hutchison Whampoa will ease Facebook into China and perhaps be an entry to LBS.

Pitney Bowes CEO: Rebranding in Progress

Good thing, I can't figure if its Pitney Bowes MapInfo or Pitney Bowes Software or what.

"We are in the process of actually rebranding across the entire company," [CEO Murray] Martin said. "With 85 acquisitions, it's important for us to look at the whole brand and the whole brand philosophy."

- Albany Business Journal

Surius, XM and LBS

The New York Times Wheels blog offers insight into up and coming offerings from the mergeable satellite radio companies.

XM is touting its new NavWeather service. For an additional $3.99 a month, current weather information is correlated with drivers’ positions so that warnings about impending meteorological disasters are flashed on a navigation system’s screen and routes can be recalculated. One wonders how often such a feature might be useful (are tornadoes or hail storms common in your area?), but it’s an added hook that when tied to live traffic reports could make some drivers’ trips smoother.

The first appearance will be in the Accura 2009 TSX.

Not to be outdone, next door at the Sirius booth the company was hawking its new Travel Link service, which is $6.99 a month. It doesn’t include weather warnings related to a driver’s route (just a standard weather report), but it does have several so-called location-based services, including local gas prices and movie listings en route. Travel Link will be available in 2009 Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury models.

Wall Street Journal on LBS and Privacy

The WSJ is right on top of things with an article titled, Phones Will Soon Tell Where You Are. It focuses on people tracking and related services, specifically Loopt, which offers "buddy tracking," now offered by Sprint and soon, the article suggests, by Verizon Wireless.

Of interest to me:

He [Sam Altman, Loopt co-founder and CEO] set out to give Loopt strict rules to prevent misuse. The most significant is that cellphone users who sign up can make their whereabouts available only to a network of friends who also buy the service.

I guess that's a safety feature, but aren't some crimes committed by friends and relatives? Moreover, isn't that also a marketing ploy, so they don't just get you to buy in, but also your "circle?"

EU Extends TomTom/Tele Atlas Review Another 10 Days, Stock Falls

Thursday the EU said it would extend its review of the proposed acquisition by 10 working days. The decision was made by the commission and both companies, said a spokesperson. Tele Atlas lost as much as 3.7 percent on the news. The extension may mean the acquisition may not complete until the second half of the year. One other change: TomTom now has a bit more time to offer remedies to the concerns.

- Bloomberg

Campus Alerts, The WARN Act and Location-based Emergency Notification

Location-based mobile alerts is a pet peeve of mine. I've been following the developments about how the average citizen is alerted to emergency situations: natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and more localized events that could cause alarm. It seems like every few months we hear of another campus shooting. As a parent, it's a chilling situation.

In addtion, more is being done to abide by The WARN Act, the Warning, Alert and Response Network, signed into legislation in 2006. In this podcast, Tim Lorello, chief marketing officer of TeleCommunications Systems, provides an update on his company's technology that will assist cellular carriers to provide location-based alerts.


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