Geo-Local
Yelp is stepping up its game against Foursquare and Gowalla by adding “check-ins” by users to its reviews. But will be enough? Or will Foursquare and/or Gowalla make for a simpler user experience and therefore a significant competitive threat? Read More »
Gowalla CEO Josh Williams in this video interview shares his company’s story and accidental foray into the world of mobile location. He talks about competition from Twitter, Foursquare and Yelp. Williams outlines new product information including the forthcoming release of a beta of Gowalla’s Android app. Read More »
In an attempt to ward of competition from the likes of Google, Nokia’s has released new Ovi Maps software for free. With the new Ovi Maps app, Nokia has a chance to become the GPS-of-choice in countries where standalone navigation devices are hard to find. Read More »
Geodelic, a developer of location-based applications, has launched an iPhone application and signed a major deal with Korea Telecom to provide a special Seoul version of its app. The company is riding the geolocation wave. It eventually wants to open its publishing system to consumers. Read More »
A patent filed by Qualcomm suggests that location could be tied to a module that you could use with whatever device you want. That means location on your phone, iPod or netbook whenever you bother to insert the module. But apps makers are skeptical. Read More »
For most of the first decade of the new century, we all waited for the emergence of location-based services. The LBS dream, it seemed, was always being deferred. Fast-forward to today — in 2010 we’ll see that mythical future become an actuality. Read More »
Winners at the Crunchies: DropBox, Foursquare, Facebook
Facebook and Zynga were among the winners at the Crunchies 2009 awards, held in San Francisco’s Herbst Theater. The third annual award ceremony, co-hosted by TechCrunch, VentureBeat and GigaOM, saw a mix of new and old technology companies share the limelight. Read More »
“What is Twitter, anyway?” I’ve been asked questions like that many times, as I’m sure most web workers have. “The Social Media Marketing Book” by tech writer Dan Zarrella, attempts to explain Twitter, blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Second Life, Yelp, and even such … Read More »
Reports that Google nearly paid about $500 million to acquire local review site Yelp are drawing even more attention to the already-hot local business search/review space and fueling debate over the merits of various local search models. While some would say that real-time, location-aware social search …
A survey of major mobile app stores shows that nearly 57 percent of paid applications in the Apple App Store have location-based functionality vs. 49 percent in RIM’s BlackBerry App World and 21 percent in Google’s Android Market. Read More »
Though services like Foursquare and Gowalla eat up techie mindshare, they still have very few users; something like 150,000 for Foursquare and 50,000 for Gowalla. However, an iPhone app called MyTown that also features a location-based check-in system game acquired 250,000 users within two weeks. Read More »
As the year winds to a close, GigaOM Pro’s crack team of contributors takes a look back at what went right, what went wrong, and for whom in the world of the NewNet. ... Read More »
My search for a top-notch ramen joint returned quality recommendations from both Twitter (as to the restaurant) and Foursquare (as to actual menu items), all in near-real time. Which made me wonder if services like Yelp have a future in our increasingly always-connected world. Read More »
Google is rumored to be in talks to buy Yelp for over $500 million. If the deal happens, then it is a good move for Yelp and its backers, who are selling at what we think is the top of the market. Read More »
Features like Foursquare’s tips give us a glimpse of a useful and monetizable service where we can get valuable recommendations in real-time, via mobile access to reviews that are local, current, relevant, actionable and come from friends. Read More »
As the social web — and increasingly, the geo-aware web — make our lives more public, we are having to (quickly!) figure out how and how not to share the more private parts of our lives online. Facebook last week updated its settings to … Read More »
Gowalla, maker of a 10-week-old geo-location app with some 50,000 users, said today it’s raised $8.4 million in a second round of funding. The money will be used “to strengthen growth efforts and further enhance Gowalla’s development capability,” the Austin, Texas-based startup said in a release. Read More »
FourSquare for the BlackBerry is on its way. The company recently provided access to its beta version to a handful of people and will soon roll it out in batches. You can still sign up for the app and it’s totally worth the wait. Read More »
If you follow me on Twitter, then you’re already aware of my obsession with Foursquare, a New York-based service that taps into the narcissistic appeal of being able to post unusual locations such as our office cafeteria, Chatz Cafe, or best recommendations about a place … Read More »
Google today launched its popular Google Maps Navigation (beta) for older devices that use Android OS version 1.6 or higher. It debuted as a free feature on Android 2.0 (Droid) handsets a few weeks ago and was received with much enthusiasm. Now devices such … Read More »
Nextstop, a user-generated travel site, is releasing an API for its location-specific short-form recommendations. The self-funded company, founded by former Google product managers, only launched in June and has attracted low hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors, however it has ambitious plans to … Read More »
FourSquare, the hot location-based services startup, is hoping to increase its momentum by opening its API to the public. Developers can use the API to visualize data generated by its community or create new ways to check into its service, the company said in a … Read More »
FourSquare, the location-based mobile application game that launched back in March, has been getting a lot of attention here in the U.S., but in the meantime, an offering made available in the iPhone App Store that same month has been gaining users internationally: … Read More »
From Loopt to FourSquare, it seems like every mobile-focused startup these days wants to hop on board the location-based application train. Aloqa launched an iPhone version of its free Android and BlackBerry application last week (the startup’s CEO, Sanjeev Agrawal, spoke during a … Read More »
Augmented reality has been around for years (remember that annoying blue flash that accompanied the puck on NHL broadcasts?), but the space has become white-hot in the last few months as developers begin to harness today’s technology to marry the real world with the virtual … Read More »
Apple purchased digital mapmaker Placebase in July for an undisclosed sum, according to Seth Weintraub at Computerworld. Placebase, which we wrote about last year, is a Google Maps competitor that focuses on adding layers of public and private data to existing maps with … Read More »
Brightkite is ready to re-launch its service. Brightkite is the company that emerged after Limbo, a Burlingame, Calif.-based startup, merged with Denver-based Brightkite. The company offers a location-based social networking service that allows folks to broadcast their location and help find bars and … Read More »
Aardvark, a San Francisco-based startup that touts a web-based answer service, today released a similar application for the iPhone that will let you ask friends in your social graph questions on topics, such as recommended restaurants or books, and receive answers directly from your … Read More »
FourSquare, the startup behind the popular LBS mobile application of the same name, has received $1.35 million in first round funding led by Union Square Ventures and including O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. Union Square Ventures is also an investor in Twitter, which is launching
As we saw with the death of Michael Jackson and the Iranian election protests, statistics on tweets help to reveal how information spreads across the web. For many, Trendrr has emerged as the digital tracking service of choice, lauded for its both … Read More »
Yesterday, we looked at Paris Metro, supposedly the first augmented reality app officially available for the iPhone. Today, Robert Scoble uncovered an Easter egg that looks like it may grant that title to Yelp, which got a version update earlier this week … Read More »
Twitter plans to launch a location-based feature that reveals the latitude and longitude from which an individual is tweeting, co-founder Biz Stone revealed in a blog post today, signaling that the micromessaging site wants to hop onto the hot location-based services trend (a topic … Read More »
The mobile advertising business is the place to be these days. AdMob, a mobile ads specialist, is about to serve its 100 billionth impression — you can watch the numbers tick up on the firm’s home page. To be sure, the number on its own … Read More »
While a good number of consumer mobile applications have tapped into the cloud, so far, only a handful of enterprise mobile applications have done the same. And the members of a panel of VCs at a “Mobilize the Cloud” event earlier this week … Read More »
In the current economy, business networking is more important than ever: We need to use lots of different techniques for finding clients. Social networks can be a great addition to our marketing toolboxes. Since I started actively using social networks (only a year and a half … Read More »
In the astonishing time surrounding the news of Michael Jackson’s death, there were several false rumors that other celebrities had died. I started wondering how I would react if someone posted false information about me and my business. Now, I’m not famous, so I doubt that … Read More »
Compete, the web research company, has come up with some interesting findings about location-based services and their use among smartphone users. According to a survey of 1,000 such people: 1 in 3 currently use a LBS at least once a month. Smartphone owners who use LBS are likely … Read More »
We are starting to experience the “problem of plenty” on the web, which is making it difficult to find information. It’s a problem being driven in large part by the availability of the vast number of tools that make publishing to the web a … Read More »
Apple’s iTunes App Store has the largest number of location-based applications: 2,300, according to data collected by Skyhook Wireless, a location information platform provider based in Boston. Nearly 75 percent of the iPhone’s location-aware apps are paid applications. These numbers only support our thesis that Apple’s … Read More »
Location-based services, at last, are beginning to hit their stride after years of promise. Last year, the number of applications using geolocation to enhance their functionality skyrocketed as Apple rolled out its iPhone, and the research firm RNCOS recently forecast that the global LBS market would …
Nearly two years ago, I outlined five reasons Apple’s iPhone will change the wireless business, the foremost being increased web usage on mobile phones. I should have added another item to that list: catalysing location-based services and applications that use geolocation data to enhance … Read More »
Handset manufacturers reported disappointing fourth-quarter and end-of-year 2008 results, and carriers are being impacted, too. Despite the bleak current environment, however, the mobile industry is thinking toward the future, and bright spots exist with growing smartphone sales and continued evolution toward 4G ... Read More …
Now that GPS chips are becoming must-have hardware on cell phones, location-based services for mobile devices have finally arrived. They’re even infiltrating the desktop. So it’s time to start sifting through the location-aware company pitches, from newly launched apps to platforms (there’s always … Read More »
Location-based services finally seem to be hitting their stride after years of promise. This year at the South by Southwest (SXSW) interactive festival in Austin, Texas, several LBS startups are launching. To understand some of the costs associated with getting a user’s location information, I … Read More »
The annual SXSW Festival is on, and this year I am surprised by the number of location-aware mobile services being launched in Austin, Texas, many of them for Apple’s iPhone. SocialBomb launched its Paparazzi game, which allows you to click and share photos of your friends … Read More »
