Wednesday, July 1. 2009

Citysearch wants you to know...

This from Mike Francesconi at Citysearch:

Citysearch and IAC are on the hunt for a killer, local mobile/web application for our site Sidewalk.com. We recently announced the launch of our “right here, right now” contest to find a brilliant idea for a local mobile/web app that focuses on making life easiern.

The creator of the winning application will win a $10,000 grand prize, and possibly, the opportunity to develop and manage a new business venture with up to $1 million dollars in funding and receive an equity stake in the new Sidewalk.com venture, and access to the Citysearch publisher network allowing them to instantly monetize traffic.

Check out all the details on the contest at sidewalk.com and follow our updates at twitter.com/sidewalkdotcom

EveryTrail Moves from B2C to B2B

GPS Business News has an interview with joost Schreve, the CEO of GlobalMotion, the company behind the social/location/travel/sharing site. (One of my students evaluated it, which is how I ran into it.) While B2C is growing, the real money seems to be in licensing the platform to other businesses including GlobalStar, the company behind the SPOT locator and REI. I suspect many other LBS companies will need to "adjust" their business models.

Wired on LBS

One piece by Clive Thompson at Wired looks at the LBS market in the context of the oxymoron that the Web means location doesn't matter, but that location-knowing devices means it does. Mentioned: Loopt, Socialight, Skyhook. Next big thing, per the article, "tagging."

Tuesday, June 30. 2009

NAVTEQ's Mobile Traffic App Update

You may have missed yesterday's press release from NAVTEQ noting an update to its traffic information app for mobile phones (any with a browser) for free. There are, per C|net some unobtrusive ads, and the navigation is "interesting." The "east" and "west" links to slide the map one way or the other, are not in their typical orientation.

It's hard to imagine that users really want one app for finding directions or local services and another for traffic information. I'm hopeful this is simply a way to get the word out that this sort of functionality (and detail) should be embedded in other apps, a la "Intel Inside," though NAVTEQ uses "NAVTEQ onboard."

Friday, June 26. 2009

Foursquare to add push notification of locations in latest iPhone app

Now, instead of your friends having to actively look up the last place from which you checked in, they can get "pushed" a message about your new whereabouts. TechCrunch thinks some will love this, others will hate it. More options and more control seem to be the best any LBS provider can offer. The new app will be available for free via the App Store soon.

Tuesday, June 23. 2009

Podcast: Why not code the real world?

While much money is spent noting attributes of physical objects on paper maps or in electronic files, only for them to be of limited use in the field, why do we not simply code more real world object with key information? In Akron fire hydrants are coded with their water pressure by their colored domes. Even as we put all this information into databases, should we also think more about simply it putting it right where it's needed?


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