Loopt is a Social Compass

About us

“Using location-based technologies, Loopt lets you know where your friends are by automatically updating maps on your mobile handset. Loopt even lets you send messages to nearby friends or receive automatic alerts when they’re nearby so that you never miss an opportunity to meet. Loopt also lets you journal your life so that your friends can see what you’re up to. With Loopt, mobile subscribers put themselves on the map.”

More: Where 2.0 News Coverage

GeoTours Premium

According to GPS World Geovative Solutions launched a premium service for destination marketing:

“Geovative’s GeoTours Premium was designed specifically for destination marketing organizations, the company said. ‘It’s basically for any organization that wants to attract people to their location in a unique fashion,’ said Scott Rock, co-founder of Geovative.”

At Geovative.com you can “create ‘tours’, or groupings of locations on a map, and add text, images, or audio files to each location. Tours can be shared with anyone across the world through GeoTours Xchange. If you prefer seeing things in person, you can download tours to a supported GPS device through GeoTours On the Go.”

The Premium service allows “you to create personalized Mini-Sites, add tours to your own web page using Tour Widgets, and view detailed statistics and graphs about your tours. Plus, GeoTours Premium is ad-free and you get 10 times the normal storage space! GeoTours Premium is a subscription-based service, but there’s also a free 1-month trial available.”

http://www.geovative.com/blog/2007/11/introducing-geotours-premium.htm

Via GPS World.

locr@Nokia

Germany-based company locr states that their software for Symbian S60 phones is available at Nokia’s EMEA download site – in a press release for instance via inar.de. locr offers a community and a software for geotagging photos.

www.locr.de | http://www.locr.com/index.php?lang=en

Locative games nominated for IGF Mobile

The “Independent Games Festival Mobile” nominated two locative games in the category “Innovation in Augmented Design“:

“PhoneTag Elite [KnowledgeWhere, Calgary, Alberta, Canada] turns hide and seek into a radical group sport across North America by using the mobile phone as a console for chatting and location-tracking. Available exclusively to Sprint customers across America, taggers can shop in-game at their favourite brand stores for tools to help evade capture and pursue targets.

PhoneTag Elite is designed to build both team and community relationships, encourage physical and mental agility, and introduce a new way of playing interactive games from your mobile phone. But, most of all, PhoneTag Elite is designed to be fun. PhoneTag Elite utilizes a patent pending, proprietary technology that protects individuals’ privacy and ensures the players true location is never revealed.”

“Anna’s Secret [by Jan Ulrich Schmidt, Hamburg, Germany] is a GPS driven, location-based learning adventure game for cultural content in the city of Weimar (Germany). A player walks with a GPS-able Pocket PC through the Ilm-park and passes sightseeings. Video clips show Anna and explain the sights, which have an important role in the game. On his way the player has to solve different quests and mysteries to solve Anna’s Secret. If he does well, he can find a treasure chest.

The story of a ghost that suffers from amnesia is used to immerse the player into the gameplay. Many videos show the ghost Anna or details of the park and its history. The game could be adapted to any other city, if the content and the story are modified.

Anna’s Secret is based on the game ‘geocaching’, but extends this play by video and film clips, multimedia features, components of a adventure game and a real, historical background story.

The project is a diploma thesis at the Bauhaus-University of Weimar at the professorship for media and interface design. It respects aspects of ubiquitous and pervasive gaming.

Via GPSbusinessnews

Whereboutz@Facebook located

About Whereboutz:

“Whereboutz is a service that allows you to share your location with friends and let them know what you’re up to—it is available as a Facebook application and a free mobile application. (…) Use Whereboutz every day (many times a day!) to tell your Facebook friends where you are and what you’re up to—either from your computer, or from your cell phone. When you post, your friends can find you on a map on Facebook or their cell phone.”

http://www.whereboutz.com/faq.html

Via GPS World.

It is the same service as plazes.com, isn’t it?

Pointoo moves forward

Users of the “location bookmark service” Pointoo just received a mail that Pointoo changes its status and becomes an independent company, a GmbH. Pointoo is in the portfolio of the Holtzbrinck eLab…

findbyclick anotherlocationcommunity

Screenshot: Locative Media

 

“We’re harvesting location based information from the community to create the largest, most accurate, most comprehensive collection of location based intelligence for you to use via the web and via your mobile phone.”

http://www.findbyclick.com

More on the concept of findbyclick in “About us”:

“We want to build a community of people interested in sharing location-based information for the mutual benefit of all. For others, it is a way to share memorable places: a great place to eat, a hot vacation destination, or a special place to watch the sunset. FindbyClick is a place where you get to tell the story.”

 

http://www.findbyclick.com/about/

Video presentation “Dash-PND”

A video clip from the presentation on the personal navigation system from Dash at the Web 2.0 summit in October 2007 at San Francisco – via Glenn Letham’s AnyGeo Blog:

http://gisuser.blogspot.com/2007/11/coming-soon-dash-express.html

GyPSii phone community

Screenshot: Locative Media

A geo community for web and phone users, where everybody can upload geolocated photos, audios, videos, points of interest. About GyPSii:

“GyPSii is the consumer application for mobile, web & Internet connected devices.GyPSii allows users to share their real life experiences in the virtual world using mobile devices and the web. It is a social networking, search & location based suite of integrated mobile and web applications – for users to share, view & upload pictures, video, text and POI (points of interest) with a Geo-location – place and track each other in their select communities. Find people and places, points of interest, map and navigate to them all.

A record of a Life History of Events in Full Context (Video & audio clips, location(s), photos, text, shared experiences & people, etc.)

A seamless mobile & web experience built on the convergence of locations based services, social networking, mobile & web 2.0 technologies, agnostic access across devices and networks.”

http://www.gypsii.com/reader.cgi?id=about

The phone client is available for Windows Mobile – for Symbian S60, Nokia only, it is soon to come.

Interesting is the “Market Overview and Introduction to GyPSii” (PDF).

User-generated POI from DisMoiOu/TellMeWhere

Screenshot: Locative Media

GPS Business News published an interview with Interview with Pierre-Antoine Durgeat, co-founder, DisMoiOu (TellMeWhere) a French LBS community web site. The web site is free, the business model is to generate revenues from advertisement. GBN asked the following question on the product concept of the “user generated point of interest community”:
What is the driver behind DisMoiOu.fr/TellMeWhere.com?

“Durgeat: Users are in demand of qualified and up to date local information. Internet allows for a great wealth of information to be searched and looked at. Unfortunately this information is now very close to paper information. It is static and lacks interactivity. Web 2.0 applications linked to LBS solutions allow for such information to be up to date and shared at a minimal cost. For example, databases are up to date on hotels and parking lots, not on Roman churches or skate board parks. We have therefore created the technology for points of interest to be known and promoted to end users in need of such vertical information. We expect to allow for example a handicapped person to know where handicapped parking spaces are available in Paris. The community caters for the good of each user. The founders’ vision is ultimately to create an exhaustive up to date, user generated points of interest database.”

http://www.gpsbusinessnews.com/index.php?action=article&numero=509

–> Same concept as the one of Pointoo (Holtzbrinck) at Germany.

Dash: Yahooed, connected, mashup navigation system

Screenshot: Locative Media

 

Dash is “the first and only navigation system with built-in two-way connectivity. (…) With Dash Express you can:

• Know the best routes around traffic using up to the minute information provided by the Dash Driver Network
• Find virtually anything—nearby or near your destination—using Yahoo! Local search
• Send an address from any computer right to your car with Send to Car”

http://www.dash.net/product.php

Ed Moltzen attracted my attention on ChannelWeb, hinting at the current Dash activities. Ed also pointed at the two sources quoted below:

“The device is noteworthy because, once deployed, it’s said to do a bunch of things all at once. It’s a GPS navigation device that also integrates WiFi, services from Yahoo, continually updated traffic information and two-way communication.”

http://www.crn.com/networking/204202898

Ozzie Diaz as a beta tester in his HP blog:

“I’ve been on the beta program for Dash Networks who is nearing commercialization of a GPS nav device with a built-in GPRS radio as well as WiFi that enables updated traffic information and Yahoo! Local content while on the go. The Yahoo! Local is pretty good and provides the all-important personalized content related to my location, such as where is the nearest Starbucks or pizza joint. Apart from the obvious interest in the combo of tailored Internet content and location, the as-yet unrealized potential is with the WiFi interface. Currently it’s doing firmware updates when parked in your garage at home or brought in the house. But if these devices or a common protocol for peering among such devices (Standards Bodies, how ‘bout it?) grow in numbers on the streets and highways, whether they be mobile in-vehicle or fixed roadside can be the REAL killer apps for these networks of devices!”

http://h20325.www2.hp.com/blogs/ozzie/archive/2007/11/21/5153.html

Erick Schonfeld on the mashup concept in TechCrunch:

Owners will be able to manage which mashups they receive through Dash’s Website. There, they will be able to drag feeds from sites like Platial, where they can create a Google Map of dog runs in San Francisco or yoga schools in LA. Link it to Zillow, and you will be able to get data on houses as you are driving around the neighborhood. Create a feed at Upcoming.org about all the rock concerts in your city or one of open houses from Craigslist, and you will be able to get the info in your car, along with how far away each place is. You will also be able to do a Yahoo Local search on the device for restaurants and it will return nearby results with ratings.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/19/dash-wants-to-bring-web-mashups-to-your-car/

Remark of the editor: It’s a “dashup concept”

Fotoland.us – Flickr-Google-Mashup

Another mashup by Taher Baderkhan. Fotoland.us is a community concept that “brings you pictures from all over the world by combining technologies from Flickr and Google Maps using the power of tags. It is the best and fastest way to explore pictures of other cities, locations and cultures. Fotoland is a user collaborative effort that grows with your participation.” It is the same approach as loc.alize.us

Screenshot: Locative Media

Plazes: Locative social software

Plazes added the “Where?” to communities. Here is an excerpt from the FAQ, the Question is “Why do you call a Plaze a Plaze and not a location?”

“A Plaze represents much more than just a location. It is the identity that you give to a physical location. So, for instance, a restaurant and an office are both located on “111 MacDougal Street, NYC. In this case you have one location, but two Plazes. (Hey, it’s the context that counts)
Every Plaze has its own permalinkable page that consists of pictures, comments, a map, and a list of people who have visited the Plaze.”

http://plazes.com/the/help

Screenshot: Locative Media

Geotagging community “Pointoo”

The “location bookmark service” by “Holtzbrinck eLab” offers user-generated Points of Interest (POI) for the usage via web, mobile phone or navigation system.

Screenshot: Locative Media

Mashup “loc.alize.us”

A “localizer”, a mashup by ubilabs using geotagged flickr-photos as a basis for presenting photos geographically and enabling a community. It’s also a good service to filter flickr-photos.

Screenshot: Locative Media