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…
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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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.”…
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 […]
Skyhook’s Tools = Music + People + Location
Geosocial music? Listen up: After integrating Skyhook‘s Local Fave’s toolkit, deploying geosocial features, Intersect World LLC‘s music apps experienced a growth spurt and has seen over 2.5 million downloads. They are not alone in the effort to tie together an emotion-based, inherently social experience of online music with human connections. But Skyhook is doing some interesting things to make it happen. […]
Global GeoTweet Map Gone Rad
The fabulous frog design has crafted a slick live aerial view of tweets as they come in and then are overlain on a world heat map. You’ve seen this before in various forms but this one has at least one thing the others don’t: 3D. Yep, put on your glasses, select “3D Stereo View” and immerse […]
5 Million Reasons to Develop that Geo-News App
Think you’ve got a great idea for disseminating news using geoX technology and want to vie for a part of five meeelyion dollars? Sure you do. Welcome to this year’s edition of the Knight News Challenge, where anyone and everyone is invited to submit their solution for advancing the future of news by funding new ways […]
Playboy ‘Scout’ Reveals Geo-Based Nightlife Content
Has Geo-local jumped the shark? Mmm, not yet but close. Xtify’s Playboy Scout is a “mobile application enhanced with location-triggered content delivery” using the company’s geo-location push notification technology. Available on Android phones and soon on other smartphone platforms, the Scout application presents “exclusive” nightlife oriented offers and information about events, clubs, and bars which […]
Hob-Knob and WiFi Equal Instant Geo-Community
Just briefly: We seen this attempted before with different levels of success. But no reason to think Florida-based Hob-Knob has not overcome past challenges and is prepared to pull a neat rabbit from their hat. Essentially Hob-Knob’s app (iPhone, Android by Q4) empowers ephemeral communities to pop up based on a wifi geo-fence. That is, […]
WHERE, Constant Contact Partner to Drive Daily Deals
Constant Contact and WHERE are teaming up to deliver a novel solution to help merchants drive local commerce. Hey, why should they be left out of the geolocation deals bonanza? The integration will allow small business owners to create daily deals through WHERE and market them to their current customers through Constant Contact’s email marketing […]
In Geosocial Universe: Big Suns, Shooting Stars
It might be appropriate on a day that Facebook announces single sign-on, new API to Places, local deals and that its service is “multiples” larger than any other (Foursquare: Snap!) that we recall a visual from the recent past by JESS3 (click image for large version). You’ll note how products are compared in relative terms […]
TeleNav Opens Location and Nav to Mobile/Web Devs
This is a little cool. TeleNav, Inc. the location-based services provider behemoth, is releasing APIs enabling developers to connect such things as such as turn-by-turn directions and location sharing to mobile and web apps. The APIs called TeleNav Connect and TeleNav Share, are available through the TeleNav Developer Platform. “We have made it easy for […]
#ivoted – Foursquare, Google, JESS3 Make Voting Social
Time’s running out to prepare for The Big Checkin. As you might be aware Foursquare has launched its “I Voted” campaign with a goal of illustrating in real time where you are voting and when (or at least checking in) – it all starts November 2. And of course there’s a badge (#ivoted). According to […]
TownFlier Launches (and Launches…) Local Suite
I intended to introduce you to a TownFlier, a freshly minted Maryland-based startup that morphs mapping with neighborhoods with communications. But before I could got the words down the swift developers over there cranked out several somewhat derivative, or complementary, sites all spinning from the beta TownFlier. But I’ll start where I was in the […]
New Service Might Make You the ‘Town Wizard’
So you want to become the local digital publishing barron but lack the tools, resources, know-how … essentially everything except ambition. Today it still might be possible to both invest little and still get decent returns. At least that’s the promise being made by TownWizard, a new service offering all the tools needed to create […]