Chat Up Nearby Drivers: It’s Mobile Social Traffic!
Ever heard of “remote viewing”? Wiki defines it as the ability to see “an unseen target using paranormal means.” In the rational world one might apply a definition closer to what newcomer TrafficTalk does.
Almost as cool as seeing around corners with a third eye is doing it with the help of scores of people you’ve never met. And Traffic Talk might have ultimate confluence of realtime, crowdsourcing, social engagement utilities mated to make it happen.
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Profile Valet Shields Embarrassment, Improves Your Battery Life
Let’s start there, because as with most good software this is merely icing on the cupcake — if it’s that good you don’t care about shelling out a micropayment in an app store.
And some of you might already have done so, buying a similar Android app that takes a circuitous route to optimizing your device experience. Might want to rethink that purchase: Enter freebie Profile Valet from the guys at Pushpin Labs and say goodbye to the randomness associated with the feature functions happening under the covers of your favorite handset. What’s that mean exactly? It means your phone’s IQ just leaped 50 points.
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5 Questions for John Kim of Whrrl (Pelago)
This is the sixth in a series of brief Q&As with leaders and up-and-comers in the local space… 
Describe Whrrl as if a friend’s mother asked, “So what is this Whrrl?
I bet if we asked, you could name off the top of your head three favorite places to go and the things you do at those places. Finding new places that are perfect for you is hard because people are content to stick to what they know.
Whrrl increases the possibility of discovering something new — rather than you finding ideas, we believe the right ideas should find you…
Did WHERE Patent Just Fence In Competition?
Yeah, I have a patent. But mine’s not even close to being as cool as this one from WHERE Inc. – assuming it holds up under claims of prior art and all that.
Patent number 7,848,765 is all about geofencing — a virtual geographic radius that, when breached by a person with a device (or even without the person I suppose) some predetermined action occurs on the device, such as an advertisement being fired off…
7 Things I Want From My Phone for Christmas
I’m a little weary of the “Holiday Tech Stuff” roundups, as I suspect are you, so let’s just leap right into what I’d demand from Cell-a-Claus and his App Elves, were he to ask.
I’ve been a goo… not horrible guy this year, Cell-a, really. And I’m not asking for anything current technology would not permit. So please bring me the following:
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5 Questions for Pia Arthur of Gowalla
This is the fifth in a series of brief Q&As with leaders and up-and-comers in the local space…
Describe Gowalla as if a friend’s mother asked, “So what is this Gowalla?
Gowalla is a social network that inspires people to keep up with friends, share the places they go and discover the extraordinary in the world around them. Like a passport on your phone, Gowalla was born out of a desire to share remarkable places and life journeys in a fun, easy and social way. Since launch, people have visited, commented on and photographed 2 million places in 170 countries with Gowalla…
MapQuest Invites Itself to the Open-Social
MapQuest … You remember MapQuest, the innovator of online mapping from the ’90s. The innovator from the ’90s bought by AOL and turned into a cartographic ATM and then had the last drops of life wrung from it when it was splintered across the AOL organization with ownership of mobile (the most important element, mind you) in both many and no hands. The same MapQuest that clawed for enterprise and B2B deals while Google thanked them for their ignorance and promptly stomped them into the ground. Yeah, that MapQuest…
Examiner.com + Reuters = Enormous and Local
Examiner.com, the ongoing success story being written by thousands of local contributors and led by “local” vet Rick Blair (profiled by Locl.ly here) has announced quite a deal: Soon they’ll be teaming with Thomson Reuters to share contributors’ “local insights and topical expertise across the country.”
In an email and on his blog, Blair wrote:
“As of today, Reuters and Examiner.com have entered into a partnership as part of the Reuters America platform solution—whereby Reuters and it’s subscribers will have access to Examiner.com’s vast media network of localized, consumer lifestyle content.
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‘Location’ is at Apple’s iPhone Core (Patently Apple)
The site Patently Apple has a rather interesting observation about some of the recent patent filings by Apple related to its iPhone. According to PA via records it has surface Apple is attacking the big and the small around geolocation, with technological tweaks and improvements (that are actually
quite complex) and practical setups to solving common human needs like “what am I about to pass on my trip to grandma’s that I might be interested in?”…
Love the Gov? USA.gov Gets You Mobilized (No, Really)
YEAH yeah, we’ve all heard about the Gov 2.0 movement but has anyone outside the Washington Beltway actually positively, knowingly benefitted from it? Please correct me if I’m wrong but it feel like there has been a good deal of positive chatter and opening of kimonos and talk of transparency but not a lot of action, at least on the geo-mobile side. And by gosh there certainly could be, given the mountains of data and such trapped inside (i dunno) mainframes and steely rectangular gov’t-issued desks.
Oh but wait. Wait just one second…
Loopt Pushes Background Location, Geo-Messaging
In the geosocial battles Loopt was on the field before so many others even took up arms. Then they seemed to recede: not selling to Google, sort of yielding to some of the louder startups in the space (or perhaps they were just their ugly adolescent stage as VC Fred Wilson puts it, tho not about Loopt)…
Personalized Recommendations Lead to WHERE
As promised on Locl.ly, WHERE, Inc., is now launching the latest version of its local discovery service pressing people to “discover their next favorite place.”…
Newspapers + GeoMesh of Providers = Interesting
In the olden days (1991) I earned a stipend-like salary working for a Gannett newspaper outside Philadelphia. I did a number of things there, some of them poorly (i.e. quickly copyediting stories on tax rate hike debates) and some well (writing headlines; teaching desktop publishing).
But one of the most fascinating jobs I got to do was man the Associated Press wire. On the old glowing-green terminals they had us looking into in the smokey and nearly windowless newsroom, the AP feed would pour in like a precursor to The Matrix’s cascading code imagery…
Grocery Guide: The Hyper-GeoMobileSavvy List!
OK ShopKick, ShopSavvy, CardStar and all the rest of you: Time for a new challenge. We the lazy, the lost, the hurried, the ignorant need someone to not only lead us to water; we need to be led from pond to pond.
I’m talking of course about those of us (particularly of a certain gender) who when entering a grocery store with list in hand (or more likely on our phone) proceed to criss-cross the place looking for sugar among the paper towels and ice cream near the butter. Who lays out these places? And forget about the wayfinding provided by signage. There needs to be a better way…
5 Questions for Rick Blair of Examiner.com
This is the fifth in a series of brief Q&As with leaders and up-and-comers in the local space.
Describe Examiner as if a friend’s mother asked, “So what is this Examiner?”
Think of the early roots of information exchange, before the Internet, before phones even. People would return from travels abroad with news, ideas and new trends and happenings. People received their information from those around them that were closest to the subject matter. That’s what Examiner.com…
5 Questions for Clay Graham of RateCred
This is the fourth in a series of brief Q&As with leaders and up-and-comers in the local space
Describe RateCred as if a friend’s mother asked, “So what is this RateCred?”
Well my mom uses RateCred. One day she said to me “Clay, can I try that rate for credit thing you do? Last night I went to my favorite Greek restaurant, and they gave me a free Souvlaki appetizer! I always go places that I want my friends to know about.” So we don’t try to be a directory of places, although we do that too, what we want to do very well is is make it simple to share your opinion about the places you go with your friends. We then make that a game with rewards so it’s fun to play the rating game with others…
Air Force Flies Red Flag Over GeoSocial
WARNING: “…careless use of [geosocial] services by airmen can have devastating operations security and privacy implications,” stated someone at the Air Force according to the Associated Press. (I presume that means airwomen as well.)
This is the latest red flag thrown by the U.S. military – this time the U.S. Air Force – in an ongoing battle between freedom to engage in virtually social apps and perceived security violations resulting from that activity…
Augmented Reality? Layar It On Me
There’s nothing particularly new about augmented reality applications on mobile devices, nor with Layar – likely the leading platform for this activity (except for the fact that they recently received a boatload of investment dollars). But I thought it possible some readers were not all that familiar and would benefit from a better knowledge of […]
Ultra Local, Simplicity, Ego Lead the Way in 2011
Simple Gets Simpler: Successful online and mobile experiences will become much closer to being intuitive than ever before, anticipating not the geek’s natural next clicks but the average Jane’s. I’m not talking about Web 2.X, with its big buttons, oversize input boxes and Ajax popovers but rather one action to the next dictated by the glassy smoothness of an inhale following and exhale. This is true behavioral anticipation leaving no room for confusion and no time for pause. Simple = successful…