All Points Blog - LBS

Junaio: Mobile Social 3D Editable Augmented Reality App

(Adena Schutzberg) — Fri, 6 Nov 2009 09:02:19 -0600

Metaio Augmented Reality Solutions is behind the Junaio iPhone app which will launch soon. RWW has the preview of the app which allows users to add, edit and animate 3D objects within the phone's view of reality. Then, those photos, for example can b...Read more

Acquisition/Parntership Roundup

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 4 Nov 2009 08:43:31 -0600

TeleCommunications Systems, a developer of text messaging location-based software, has acquired Solvern Innovations, a Baltimore company specializing in cyber security. - press release MapmyIndia, one of Indias map and GPS navigation services...Read more

Podcast: With Geodata, Developers, not Consumers Rule

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 3 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0600

If consumers think of geodata as a commodity, what does that say for its future? What are the key data relationships? And what, if anything, will differentiate one offering from another? Our editors ponder these questions in light of evidence that co...Read more

TeleNav to File for IPO ($75 million)

(Adena Schutzberg) — Mon, 2 Nov 2009 08:30:29 -0600

- WSJ...Read more

Augmented Reality Player Layar gets $1 million+ in funding

(Adena Schutzberg) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:04:06 -0500

That's the word from VentureBeat. The company boasts 250,000 downloads and acknowledges all the funders in the current round are from Europe. Also: the app launched on Symbian....Read more

Stalqer: Foursquare running in the background

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:11:29 -0500

One of the big issues with location-based apps for the iPhone is that the operating system does not allow background processing. That makes playing Foursquare or other LBS apps and games a bit trying. Stalqer ("stalker?") has found a way around t...Read more

Podcast: The State of Augmented Reality

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:00:00 -0500

What is augmented reality and how does it relate to geospatial technology? Is it "just cool" or are there real uses for it? Further, is there any money it? Our editors offer up definitions, uses and suggestions for geospatial companies waiting on the...Read more

VentureBeat: State of Mobile Social Networks

(Adena Schutzberg) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:08:08 -0500

Saad Fazil does a roundup and explains why these networks are still not reaching their potential: We decided to try out several of these apps ourselves and talk to the companies and several industry experts to find out. And what we found out is that...Read more

First Foursquare Transit Partner: BART

(Adena Schutzberg) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:59:34 -0500

San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit will offer up free tickets for those who "check in" in various locations. "From November onward, the transit authority will award $25 promotional tickets to random users who check-in at one of 34 BART stations."...Read more

Loopt Acquires GraffitiGEO

(Adena Schutzberg) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:12:43 -0500

I guess that broke the other day (TechCrunch). I wrote about the company in August. (APB) Now, TechCrunch has actual comments from Loopt CEO Sam Altman. "In particular, he [Altman] says Loopt has been exploring location-based social gaming, local ...Read more

What your mobile local searches say about you...

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:13:20 -0500

Turns out, per uLocate, the folks behind WHERE: ...BlackBerry users are more likely to compare gas prices online than other smart-phone owners. IPhone users, meanwhile, are eight times more likely to search for Starbucks ... locations than users of ...Read more

Foursquare to be "everywhere" Soon

(Adena Schutzberg) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:48:10 -0500

One of the Foursquare founders, Dennis Crowley, posted at the company's GetSatisfaction forum: "Just FYI were a few weeks away from doing *everywhere*." For those not keeping up, the "game" added London two weeks ago and 15 North American cities las...Read more

TownMe: An LBS API

(Adena Schutzberg) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:30:44 -0500

If you want to build an LBS app, but don't want to collect/license the local data, consider TownMe's newly announced API. You give it location information it returns data. What data? Public data like census information, Tweets, stuff added to its web...Read more

Waze/Aloqa Wins Smaato Mobile Ad Awards (huh?)

(Adena Schutzberg) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:18:16 -0500

Among the the winners of the Smaato Mobile Advertising Awards 2009 was Waze; it won in the Overall iPhone category. Aloqa, an LBS app, also was a winner. The awards "recognize excellence in the world of mobile apps and the mobile web. ... Smaato awar...Read more

Brightkite Update

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 6 Oct 2009 09:33:28 -0500

ReadWriteWeb details what's new in the BrightKite update. Brightkite is a tool to add location to iPhones, Blackberrys and Android phones. I run into it most as a tool to add location information to twitter posts. The update is timed well as Twitter ...Read more

Details on Twitter's Geo Data Storage for Upcoming API

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:50:24 -0500

You can read a nice summary by Gina Trapani at SmarterWare. Highlights: opt in only, location info dropped after 14 days, Twitter encourages developers not to store data and to "fuzz it up." The API was to launch today, but it's delayed a bit. via...Read more

Rseven - "Lifecaching"

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:32:27 -0500

Rseven is as service that not only geotag, but also back up all you do with it - talk (it can record calls), take pictures, text, etc. With that archive you know everything you "did" today. As VentureBeat notes, recording others without expressly say...Read more

FourSquare for Business

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:20:23 -0500

It's time for the LBS-social networking app (game?) to begin touting local establishments. It's launched FourSquare for Business to help business promote themselves to users of the app. For now, there's no talk of charging businesses, but it's got to...Read more

Update: Stealth Mode Location Tech to be Unveiled Next Week

(Adena Schutzberg) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:06:00 -0500

The press release came out at the end of last week and offers no further information - save that the solution involves "self-learning." At the same time Bruce Sterling at Wired is all excited about Nokia's ongoing "indoor positioning" solutions an...Read more

Two of Top TechCrunch 50 Winners Tap Location

(Adena Schutzberg) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:26:54 -0500

The big winner of the event was RedBeacon which turns local search into "local companies bid for your work." The company takes home $50,000 and about $1.3 million in partner advertising. One of the two DemoPit winners (as voted on by attendees) w...Read more

Centrl Goes from Mobile to Web

(Adena Schutzberg) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 06:53:54 -0500

Some location-based apps start on the Web then port to mobile devices. Centrl has done the opposite. It's been available on the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Nokia for a year and a half, but just this last week launched a Web app. It integrates wit...Read more

MapTango: Does the world need another mapping/social/post photos app?

(Adena Schutzberg) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 07:28:48 -0500

One new way to announce your new geo product is to follow a geo publication on Twitter. It seems to work - I did go check out @maptango which had no tweets, but did have a link. That led me to the app and a "post" on the app that the beta was now ope...Read more

Quote of the Week

(Adena Schutzberg) — Thu, 3 Sep 2009 08:37:07 -0500

"Location-based services will bring information to you without you having to ask a search engine for it. It's that kind of proactivity that will make computers more productive. We can make that more seamless over the next decades." - Intel chief e...Read more

New iPhone "Outbreaks Near Me" app Encourages User Gen Health Info

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 2 Sep 2009 06:20:03 -0500

I'm not entirely comfortable with the lay public reporting on outbreaks of H1N1 flu, especially if there is no way to determine the data are authoritative. There were enough challenges when medical professionals were doing the reporting this spring! ...Read more

BBC Using Google Gears to Deliver Location-based Content

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:40:59 -0500

For now the content is weather and spots from it Breathing Places efforts (about natural places) but the effort will grow to provide more options as part of BBC Learning Innovations. A demo under the working title BBC Open Air is a website one can vi...Read more

Google Crowdsources Traffic: Will that kill waze?

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:01:02 -0500

Lots of buzz in the last day or so about Google using data from those using Google Maps Mobile to compile and share traffic data - especially for rural routes. (See for example Ars Technica.) It's been around in some areas for a while. Several com...Read more

The Cycle Repeats

(Adena Schutzberg) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 06:00:00 -0500

In the past few years pretty much all communications could be geotagged in one way or another. E-mails could be geotagged, social networking apps could share location and soon, with a new API from Twitter, individual tweets will be geotagged. Each...Read more

Yelp Mobile: Bing Maps on Blackberry, GMaps on iPhone

(Adena Schutzberg) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 06:00:00 -0500

TechCrunch notes the launch of the Yelp Blackberry app (Yelp is a restaurant review service) and the difference in map platform. So, why go Bing when Google was used for the previous app on the other platform? Per the article: "Yelp says that Bin...Read more

Victoria Fires Report Offers Suggestions; Reporter Harps on LBS

(Adena Schutzberg) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:57:15 -0500

The report about last summer's fires and the resulting deaths in Victoria, Australia came out yesterday. It includes many suggestions for future responses. (The Austrlalian) But in an interview with Sky News Attorney-General Robert McClelland conc...Read more

Twitter to Add Location Info to Tweets

(Adena Schutzberg) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:02:54 -0500

I guess we knew it was coming. There are numerous ways to automagically add "real time" location to tweets already via third party apps. Now, Biz Stone notes on the Twitter blog the capability will be added to the API, then to the end user interface....Read more

Yelp + Digg + Foursquare = GraffitiGeo

(Adena Schutzberg) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:23:07 -0500

That's the equation from ReadWriteWeb and it sounds like a great short hand for the new GraffitiGeo which the site says will suffer from all the regular social media apps' problem: reaching critical mass. Mashable does like the "digg-like" voting but...Read more

Palm Collecting Pre Location (and other) Data: Story Summary

(Adena Schutzberg) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:19:59 -0500

Short version: 1) Programmer finds that location and other information about user habits are being sent to Palm daily 2) Media writes about it and demands explanation from Palm 3) Palm responds - saying in essence - we said we'd do that in the l...Read more

Waze Business Model: Collect Data and License It

(Adena Schutzberg) — Fri, 7 Aug 2009 07:57:37 -0500

I noted waze when it came out for the Android beginning in May of this year. This week it debuted for the iPhone (press release) with commentary from the company's community geographer, Di-Ann Eisnor. (It seems she still holds a position at Platial.)...Read more
Continue reading "Waze Business Model: Collect Data and License It"

Foursquare News

(Adena Schutzberg) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:06:54 -0500

It seems like Foursquare pops up in the news every few months. Otherwise, I hear almost nothing about it - perhaps because it's not yet come to my city of Boston. This week a New York Times blog reports on the Town Holler, a Foursquare "meetup" o...Read more

74% of Facebook Ad Revenue from Local Ads

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:08:18 -0500

Clay Dillow writes about that in Fast Company, noting ad research firm Borrell Associates estimates the $310 million in ad revenue expected for Facebook in during 2009, 74% will come from local, location-based ads. Compare that to MySpace's 27% and s...Read more

AOL CEO Tim Amstrong: Fewer Ads, More Value to Advertisers on MapQuest

(Adena Schutzberg) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:27:11 -0500

Armstrong (who joined the company from Google) was asked about his plans for the second 100 days on the job: At a baseline level, you are going to see improvements to MapQuest. Some of the pages on MapQuest had 17 ads on them. We've just removed 10 ...Read more

Verizon Opens Omnia - Now Users Can Choose GPS Apps!

(Adena Schutzberg) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 07:46:34 -0500

Last week Verizon released CF03, a software update for the Sansung Omnia phone that unlocks the GPS for use with other apps other than its VZ Navigator. Verizon was one of a very few carriers locking down the garden... - C|net...Read more

Yet Another Local Mobile Search Play: Aloqa

(Adena Schutzberg) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:52:22 -0500

Aloqa "sends you information about events, friends and other data based on your location." That's how VentureBeat describes the new product available for Android. The company has $1.5 million in first-round funding and taps as CEO, Sanjeev Agrawal, a...Read more

How Google Maps uses the W3C Geolocation API and Google Location Services

(Adena Schutzberg) — Thu, 9 Jul 2009 17:13:43 -0500

There's a lot of excitement (sample) about browsers (notably Firefox and Chrome, but actually any implementation that include Google Gears) implementing the W3C Geolocation API. Why? In the past few days Google announced that Google Maps (desktop) ca...Read more
Continue reading "How Google Maps uses the W3C Geolocation API and Google Location Services"

Citysearch wants you to know...

joe.francica@directionsmag.com (Joe Francica) — Wed, 1 Jul 2009 07:46:38 -0500

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 l...Read more