LBS Tibits

BrightKite is working on a location solution that will publish your location to several social networks at once (Foursquare, Gowalla…) Yes, this sounds like what Fire Eagle was supposed to do; it’s not been heard from much of late.

- ReadWriteWeb

Many are concerned that Yelp is “monkeying around” with reviews and that may do harm to location-based advertising in general. I’ve not seen such concerns about other sites much.

- MarketingVox

What’s up with Yahoo and mobile?  David Katz, vice president, Yahoo Mobile North America, speaks: no statements about possible acquisitions, but:

This year we will be adding apps on Android too.

Google’s strategy with Android is interesting, but I don’t think every player in mobile needs to have their own platform. I’d rather we spend our time building compelling products our users love to use; products that work regardless of the device or operator you have.

- MediaPost

Update 3: SimpleGeo: AWS for Location

Update 3: Another tease article says the app will launch in a matter of weeks. Also: input on the state of LBS from my colleague, Joe Francica.

- Daily Camera

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Google Tidbits

This week is Cebit, the huge tech show in Hanover, Germany. While smaller than last year in terms of companies attending, a few new players have stepped in including Google and Amazon. Google is introducing its StreetView, which has yet to rollout in Germany.

Google will peddle its Street View service, which hasn’t been launched in Germany because of privacy concerns. Michael Jones, chief technology advocate who specializes in Google Earth and Maps, will walk the audience through the product, which shows users street view images in Google’s map products, at an event. The company will also give an update on how the privacy discussions are progressing.

PC Pro reports: “Quizzed over Google’s stance on privacy Jones said “privacy laws need to be respected, but I hope they don’t get in the way of innovation.”“

Update: Bloomberg has more on the situation in Germany - which revolves around the country preferring 6 month holding of images and Google requesting 1 year.

Update 2: Now Bloomberg adds: “Google said there is no question Street View will be dropped in Europe.”

- PC World
- PC Pro
- Bloomberg

Wayne Dell Manuel, a 23-year-old from the University of the Philippines beat 700 others to win the first Google Map Maker Global Competition. His prize? US$50,000 donation from UNICEF for the Philippines. His work? adding more than 1,500 qualifying map features and edits to Google Map Maker. His humble quote: “I’m so excited to have won this global competition because it represents a win not just for me, but also for the Philippines. To be frank, I entered the competition to win the US$50,000 for our country, and I hope that my win encourages more Filipinos to contribute to making the online map of our country even better. We Filipinos are known for our spirit of bayanihan, and this is a great way for us to come together in the Internet era to make life better for our fellow kababayans by literally putting their communities on the digital map.”

- ABS/CBN News

Google has been granted a location-based advertising patent: Determining and/or using location information in an ad system. It “covers using location for targeting, setting a minimum price bid for an ad, offering performance analytics, and modifying the content of an ad” and was submitted back in 2004. Many are comparing it to the Facebook patent on “newsfeeds.”

- VentureBeat

Topeka, Kansas is position itself to be one of the cities Google selects to test a new broadband venture. How? It’s changed its name to Google, Kansas for the month of March. The city did this during the Pokemon fad, too.

- SJ Biz Journal

GPS Tidbits

AgWeb offers a list of things to know before you buy a GPS device for agriculture. The last one, about “intangible” benefits is one many people probably do not think of:

12. Intangible benefits.
“Now that I’ve used [GPS-guided] auto-steer, the stress reduction is bigger than I ever anticipated,” says Bryan, the Iowa farmer. “It’s hard to put a dollar amount on how much less tired I am at the end of a day. One example is my shoulders and neck don’t ache after a day running the planter like they used to. Intangibles like less stress are bonuses that sealed the deal for me.”

- AgWeb

Did you know driving with a GPS can help you understand drought? It did for Peter Foster who lives in China, which is undergoing a serious drought and is planning a serious engineering project in response.

The GPS (or ‘Tom-tom’ for UK readers) shows the reservoirs as large blue splodges on the moving map which, it often indicates, I should be able to see out the window.
Trouble is, half the time they just aren’t there. I look out expecting to see water and instead see grazing livestock and the stumps where last year’s maize fields have obviously been. Miles and miles of ‘blue’ is in fact ‘brown’ and doesn’t appear to have seen any water for years.
I don’t know what date the maps on my GPS are based on, but the gap between the computer and the reality gives you a powerful sense of the scale of Beijing’s water shortages.

- Telegraph Blogs

GPS, among other technologies helped NYC officials get one unlawful cabbie of the road.The Taxi and Limousine Commission revoked Wasim Khalid Cheema’s license after a January ruling just made public. Cheema had been using the suburban rate for in city trips, jacking them up 100% in some cases.

The city determined the driver was overcharging by reviewing his records, including automatic trip sheets that are generated using global positioning technology. Taxis are required to have the devices.

- AP via NJ.com

On March 3 Russia launched three navigation satellites to bring its GLONASS constellation up to 22 satellites, with 16 operational. That’s getting closer to the 24 required.

- PTI News

Platial to Shut Down

A blog post from the company dated Saturday said it’s preparing to shutdown. The final note to mappers is dated March 1.

As I write this going to the main site yields a popup about retirement and the option to stay on the or to learn about archiving your maps. The best news? GeoCommons has agreed to host map data collected over the last five years.

An explanation is expected in the future, but for now there is simple apology for the short notice.  That said, there’s a great GigaOm interview with DiAnn Eisnor that highlights how the company has been out of money for 18 months, had several failed acquisition attempts (one from Nat Geo), and looks at if the company was a bit too early for its time.

The company raised at least $2.4M in venture funding and acquired Frappr in 2007. Many people thought that Platial would not make it once Google launched it My Maps also in 2007.

- PaidContent