Foursquare has only recently begun testing an advertising product, but the early signs are promising, said CEO and co-founder Dennis Crowley. That’s because Foursquare is becoming more of a personalized local search engine that can walk people into local stores and restaurants. Read more »
Foursquare is making it easy for people to see where they’re friends are in real-time with new Always On notifications when a friend has checked into a location. It builds upon Foursquare’s other services for finding friends. Read more »
Snapette, which launched last August with a sort of Pinterest for the real world model, is now becoming more of a resource for local merchants and brands, who can use the mobile app and its new website to alert users to products they might like. Read more »
Banjo has been one of the lone successes in the geo-social discovery app market and is now up to 1.5 million downloads since launching last July. I sat down with founder Damien Patton to talk about their strategy. Read more »
Geoloqi, a platform for location services, launched in February, offering developers an simple and battery-efficient way to implement background location tracking and geo-fencing. Now, the company is teaming up with Appcelerator, who will make a Geoloqi module available for its Titanium platform. Read more »
Foursquare is getting its revenue story in order and announced it has hired Steven Rosenblatt, the former director of advertising sales and strategy at Apple’s iAd. Rosenblatt will serve as Foursquare’s chief revenue officer and will lead the company’s new ad products coming out this summer. Read more »
Point Inside is looking to tap the power of indoor location with the launch nSide, a new private indoor ad network for retailers.
Retailers will be able to send targeted ad messages based on a user’s location within a store, their shopping route and shopping lists. Read more »
Loku, a local discovery service, is launching its first mobile app and it starting first with an HTML5 mobile Web app with native apps to follow. The company believes that HTML5 has matured enough that it can power all its mobile apps. Read more »
City Maps has built an incredibly detailed online map of New York City, down to the block level showing every restaurant, parking lot, hotel and business. Now, it’s introducing an iOS app, an update to its website and an expansion to San Francisco and Austin. Read more »
Loopt, one of the early location-based services, is announcing that it has been bought by Green Dot Corp., a provider of retailer pre-paid cards which will use Loopt to develop mobile wallet and payment services. Green Dot is paying $43.4 million for Loopt. Read more »
Geoloqi, a Portland Ore. start-up, said it’s ready to take location-based services to the next level with a new developer SDK that makes incorporating location services easy. The location platform enables real-time tracking, geo-fencing, messaging and analytics while remaining very efficient on battery usage. Read more »
Foursquare has updated its Android app to include support for tap-and-go check-ins and P2P sharing using NFC. The app will now be able to read NFC tags at a location and immediately take a user to a venue page, where they can check-in. Read more »
A Finnish company called Walkbase is looking to bring to market a very simple and scalable solution for indoor positioning that can help map out rooms using crowd-sourced data and smart algorithms. It’s showing off its technology with a new auto Foursquare check-in app called Checked. Read more »
Foursquare today introduced its Explore recommendation and search function to its desktop website. The company, which began as a mobile app, is finding new opportunity in beefing up its web presence and leveraging all of its check-in data, recommendations and tips. Read more »
Gogobot, a social-powered travel service that launched a year ago, has raised $15 million led by Redpoint Ventures with Battery Ventures and the CrunchFund participating. Gogobot helps people plan their trips by tapping the recommendations and suggestions of their friends. Read more »
Foursquare is poised to relaunch its Add to Foursquare feature as Save to Foursquare in the next month. It will allow users on the web to save locations to their Foursquare app when they use an embeddable button, which has been simplified for publishers. Read more »
Waze, the smart crowd-source traffic information application, has picked up $30 million in a Series C round of funding as it looks to capitalize on a burgeoning international opportunity, particularly in China. The company has also hit 7 million users around the world. Read more »
While almost no one is looking forward to Los Angeles’ so-called Carmageddon, an upcoming closure of a busy freeway, crowd-sourced traffic app Waze sees an opportunity to shine. The company is teaming with the local ABC affiliate to beef up ABC’s real-time traffic information for drivers. Read more »
Local recommendations are becoming a key feature for location-based apps as they look to provide useful suggestions for users. Recommendations represent one way location services are moving beyond check-in, helping them transition from broadcasting a user’s current location to assisting them in finding their next one. Read more »
Geo-targeting and location-based services are all the rage these days, with a core group of startups already fighting for market share. But Facebook, Google and Twitter are hot on their heels. Here’s a look at who offers what, and how they aim to make money. Read more »
