Tuesday, February 9. 2010

LBS RoundUp: Loopt Adds LBS Ads, Foursquare Teams with Zagat, GyPSii and Telmap

Even as Apple tries to "manage" apps that offer location-based ads (listen to today's podcast), Loopt has signed a deal with coupon start-up Mobile Spinach to offer just that sort of ads. Loopt, best known as a "friend finder" app made the statement Monday, but the ads began appearing the Bay Area earlier this month. As the Wall Street Journal put it:

When Loopt users log on, they’ll now see messages for nearby offers in addition to a map of their friends.

Loopt had been generating revenue from a cut of carriers fees to use the app, but figures it can make more this way.
- WSJ Digits Blog

Foursquare today announced a deal with Zagat. A new "foodie" badge can be earned by visiting Zagat rated restaurants in selected cities.

- NY Times Bits Blog

GyPSii, the mobile digital lifestyle application and geo-mobility social media platform, and Telmap, the mobile search, mapping and navigation pioneers, are teaming to develop and introduce advanced location-based social networking as part of Telmap's Mobile Location Companion.

- press release

VGI Tidbits

Two "can't just sit around" sort of people were concerned about Queensland’s koala population. They've launched a grassroots organization, Koala Diaries, to keep an eye on the population. One aspect, Project Location seeks to answer:

Just how many koalas are left?
Where do they live?
In what general condition?

ESRI Australia helped build a mapping portal where the public can report sightings.

- press release

The Kerala Google Mapping Party, second of its kind in India, caused concern to the Kerala Police:

"We are apprehensive about the way comprehensive mapping for it is to include strategic locations like the Indian Space Research Organisation, various units of the defence ministry etc," said Sibi Mathews, Additional Director General of Police (Intelligence).

Organizers responded that the goal was to map neighborhoods and it seems the event went on without a hitch.
- India Today

Google Maps now include (Yahoo's) Flickr user photos as another option in its Street View offerings. Those pictures join the Google-owned Panoramio and Picasa photo sites which also provides images.

- O'Reilly Radar

The Philippines Launches National Parcel GIS

The Philippine Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Association's (CREBA) CREBALAND, its technical arm, announced the the Philippines "first fully-automated Web GIS parcellary mapping service," It's known as MapSys.Ph [site down as I write this] and "can generate an accurate lot plan and information-packed vicinity map for any given parcel anywhere in the country."

The Phillipines Star notes it was built to "precisely to help protect unwary buyers and investors" from buying nonexistent or misrepresented properties.

- Manilla Bulletin

The New Trend in Obligatory Geo Media Coverage

I've noted that every paper of any size has, in the past few years, run and article about how Tele Atlas, NAVTEQ or now Google and other organizations are collecting street level data.

The new crop of obligatory articles are about local startups offering LBS apps. Most it seems are somehow about local transportation. In a classic example the state paper introduces Locomatix launched by a company founded by a UW professor.

- Wisconsin State Journal

Post Office Closings Clustered in Rural/Poor Areas

Rural areas are home to most of the nearly 100 closed post offices in the last five years. That can mean that residents need to drive 15 more miles to the nearest facility. One elderly man died en route to the next closes post office during a snow storm. Those facts, along with at least one handwritten three page letter from an 87 year old have led to investigations as to weather the Postal Service has been following the law regarding closures.

Also noteworthy: the importance of ZIP Codes in emergency response (even though they are not really supposed to be used for such things):

Officials in the historic resort town of Crescent Lake say the suspension of their post office and loss of their own ZIP code caused confusion for search-and-rescue personnel called in after a plane crash and forest fire. Both times, rescuers mixed up Crescent with Crescent Lake and set up bases far from the scene, community members say.

The Postal Service is in financial trouble, but rural post offices account for about 1% of its budget per one retired postmaster.

- AP

Podcast: Apple to Gatekeep Location-based Ads

Last week Apple provided further direction to its developer community regarding the implementation of location-based ads in apps destined for its App Store. The LBS apps must "provide beneficial information,” and will not be accepted if they use "location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location." Why is Apple stirring this pot at this time? Our editors weigh in.

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