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27 items tagged "Social and Networking"

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TechCrunch: Apple LBS Social Networks Not Ready for Mainstream Usage

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

Mark Hendrickson comes to that conclusion in The State of Location-Based Social Networking On The iPhone. Among the things that need to be enhanced: location updates in the background (Apple does not allow this yet), stability, ability to invite friends knowing they are supported handsets.

There's a round up of the six most popular apps including Moximity which headed to private beta last week. One differentiator: it's launching in one geography at a time. First up: hometown of Austin, TX. Also unique: the app pulls in your contacts from Facebook who are also on the service. There's more coverage of the company in its local paper.
On/Off the Grid in Real/Virtual Worlds

Posted: September 10th, 2008, 6:47pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

At the NAVTEQ Connections conference yesterday in San Francisco, keynote speaker Jeff Klososky, a technology futurist, delivered some provocative statements and questions such as "who's mapping the virtual worlds." He believes that virtual worlds such as Second Life and Journeys (recently reviewed by TechCrunch and APB), have a definite place in business processes such as getting a better understanding of opinions by looking at someone's avatar, a characteristic that might be revealed in virtual space but not necessarily in the "real world."

With respect to today's methods of communicating and socializing in a "connected" world and in particular how mobile devices will broadcast location and "status" of availability, Klososky put it in terms of being "on" or "off" the grid. He listed several elements that the "connected" individual might consider in terms of being better informed with his/her network:

1. What am I using in the way of communication tools? Will you be using email, blogs, IM or Twitter?
2. Where am I; what's my proximity to others? And can I institute a rules-based notification system to tell from friends when I am in their home town?
3. What's my status? Am I busy, invisible, available?
4. How am I represented? Avatars, profiles in MySpace or LinkedIn.
Follow TV Character's Thoughts/Locations via Whrrl

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

The new marketing deal for Whrrl involves updates via Whrrl for characters on Entourage, an HBO TV show. I guess if the locations in the show were somehow important to me this might be interesting, but this doesn't sound like something that'd prompt me to sign up. That said, this is clever.

The current challenge to such network, offers Venture Beat, is that these location-based networks don't have enough participants to make them interesting. "Fake ones" are a way to up the ante.
Predications/Insights from Jeff Holden, the CEO of Pelago (Whrrl)

Posted: August 28th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

[on the future] - One is that Amazon ( NSDQ: AMZN) will become a hardware company and the second is something he's banking on?that Apple's ( NSDQ: AAPL) iPhone will evolve from a niche device to one that gains double-digit market share.

- [on what distinguishes Whrrl] "Foot-streaming" is the reason why Holden believes that they can demand high rates for their ads. Foot-streaming is the act of tracking where people go using GPS: "You are able to say people?who go to these places?also go to these places." Sound familiar? Amazon does that all the time, by showing people what other people buy when they buy a particular book. "This has never been done in the physical world."

- [on competitors] Loopt is like candy because you can see where your friends are, and with Yelp, likely only 1 percent of the audience is really engaged, he says.

- mocoNews.net
Fwix: Your Local Feed

Posted: August 26th, 2008, 3:04pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

Ars Technica interviews the CEO of Fwix an app that aggregates feeds for specific cities (26 now). Darian Shirazi is an ex-FaceBooker. The app, for now is Web-based, but an iPhone version is coming. The big "feature" for now is the ability to comment on a feed item. The feeds themselves involve jobs, events, news, etc. filtered from sources like "New York Times articles, Yahoo Upcoming events, Orbitz deals, Craigslist posts, Indeed job listings, Brightkite social network updates, geotagged Flickr photos, and even videos from YouTube and Vimeo." It's like FriendFeed for a city - but someone else, not you, picks the feeds. The business model is advertising based, but will be tied in time not just to geography but the specific feed.

A quick look at the Boston feed didn't excite me. The real key will be filtering down this massive "city life stream" to one's requirements.
Tidbit from Sam Altman, Loopt CEO

Posted: August 20th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

This from an interview at MocoNews:

- "Location is the defining element in mobile..."

- Advertisers pay an average of 10 times more for ads that have a location-relevant component too, he said.

- The iPhones not where most of our users are coming from
Loopt Offers New (Cheaper) Deal to Carriers

Posted: July 25th, 2008, 2:22pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

I don't exactly follow this, but here's what I understand from VentureBeat. Maybe a reader can help explain the flow of money...

(1) There's a "cost" (I guess in money?) to get the GPS location from a phone's chip. Each time to you (a developer) does it, you "pay."

(2) Loopt (one of these developers) struck a deal with Sirf and Qualcomm (they make GPS chips) for a flat fee to get the GPS data.

(3) Thus, Loopt can offer its service to the carriers more cheaply.

So says, VentureBeat:

What does this mean? Nearly every phone with a GPS chip right now will be able to use the Loopt application for a much better deal.

The carriers and handset makers still have to buy into this new plan, but you can be sure that is going to happen now that Loopt has this deal.

That I read as: the carriers are more likely to carry the Loopt app since it "costs them less" via this deal. End users use Loopt for free, so this is really about putting Loopt on more carrier networks, so it's THE LBS app out there. The other motivation, says a source close to the action: a forthcoming ad app for Loopt.
SocBut: The Local Social Network

Posted: July 21st, 2008, 2:36pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

Yes, the name does sound odd, but when you realize it's short for Social Butterfly, and pronounced "sock boot" perhaps it's more appealing. The idea behind SocBut is a social network where you include your ZIP Code and a distance to just receive messages from others within that area. It's sort of "hyperlocal" social networking. Conceptually, it's great, but it suffers the same challenges other locally based networks have: creating critical mass to make it interesting. Recall that Meetro died because of this challenge. That said, I give the founder credit for giving it a go and doing the intro video himself.
Nokia's Location-based (beta) Chat

Posted: July 10th, 2008, 5:14pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

IntoMobile introduces Chat, the mix of status with instant messaging. The idea is that you use the "Twitter"-like part for status and the IM part for the actual (private) conversations. The location bit? You can share your location publicly via the status or IM options. The app will "automagically" update you to a set "landmark" when you get there.
Eight mobile LBS apps: Which for you?

Posted: July 8th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

ChannelWeb offers up a slideshow of eight "cool" location-based apps. A few were new to me. But I think the important thing the list highlights is the fact that there's a slew of them out there and it's going to take quite a bit of energy on the part of the providers, carriers or potential users to sort out which is the right one.
LightPole Wants You to Know...

Posted: July 7th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

This is old news (May 13 is the blog post announcing the plugin) but LightPole wants us (and you) to try out a plug-in for Moveable Type blogging platform. (We use Seredipity, so we won't be testing it.)

As you may have heard, LightPole, Inc., a mobile application service provider focused on the "Long Tail" publishing market, co-developed a Movable Type plug-in with SixApart that allows Movable Type bloggers to geo-tag their entries, add and manage related points of interest (POIs) and publish feeds that can be used to create LightPole channels seamlessly delivering content to their readers' mobile phones. We thought it might be particularly compelling to you and encourage you to give it a try.

The GeoType Plug-In for Movable Type allows you to associate locations with blog entries. It creates locations for each blog entry, which are pushpin points that appear on a single map. Also, a map can be shown which displays all of the locations for the entire blog. Locations can be found using addresses or by scrolling the map, so you do not need to find or lookup the coordinates for your location like many other plug-ins force you to do. The plug-in also allows for these blog entries to be published to mobile devices using the LightPole Publishing System.

To download the plug-in point to your browser click here: [plugins.movabletype.org]

For additional instruction, check out the documentation at [blog.lightpole.net]

If you are already a LightPole user, great. If not, go to [www.lightpole.net] to sign-up for free and get these benefits and more.
Nrme: Geofencing for messages

Posted: June 27th, 2008, 4:20pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

TechCrunch looks at Nrme, a soon to be released only for the iPhone app. The big deal? You only received messages from those within 9 blocks (no idea how that's determined). There's no following like Twitter and idea is to get information about what's in walking distance in a city say, or in a constrained environment like a concert venue or large conference center (think about San Deigo's for example...)

Again I note, this is a feature I'd like to have with my messaging tool of choice. I don't want a special app to provide that feature. I don't expect this to take off, rather, I expect other providers or third party developers to add in this same sort of tool.
CitySense Comes out of Stealth Mode

Posted: June 9th, 2008, 2:14pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

CitySense is attempting to use real time location data from those who download its client software as well as GPS enabled cabs and other "sensors." The goal is a near real time thematic map of activity in the city.

Currently available as a free download for BlackBerry and iPhone handsets, Citysense displays what look like heat maps to show where the most human activity is going on at that moment, down to the street intersection; future releases of the product may make those locations even more detailed, but [CEO Greg] Skibiski said that's not yet decided due to the important issue of privacy concerns.

For now it's San Francisco only. The big question: what do you do once you see these heatmaps? You use Yelp or Socialight to find what must be attracting the hoards. As the CEO puts it, the app is not about meeting people, but meeting places.

Biz plan: "The company plans to profit primarily from business clients purchasing deeper data from the Macrosense platform; Citysense and all future consumer applications are intended to be strictly icing on the cake."

- c|net
Pelago Gets $15 million funding for Whrrl

Posted: May 27th, 2008, 2:52pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

The lead investor is Deutsche Telekoms venture capital arm, the T-Mobile Venture Fund. Pelago was also the first to get funds from Apple's $1M fund for iPhone development.

- Venture Beat
- BusinessWeek
Tales from the LBS Deadpool...

Posted: May 21st, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

I was enjoying dinner last night with some other geospatial folks at a reception preceding tomorrow's New York State Geospatial Summit. The topic turned to Where 2.0 and the really great ideas there and how alas, perhaps 1 in 20 had a shot of "making it."

It made reading the tale of the death of Meetro, one of early location-based social network tools rather sad. But, it's a valuable read for anyone with startup fever.
Ready for Mobile, Social 3D GPS Environment?

Posted: May 20th, 2008, 2:16pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

It's nearly here, or so says Planet 9, the well-known creator of 3D city models. RayGun is GPS navigation and social networking application, now in 2D and soon to be in 3D.

With RayGun, you can create an avatar to represent yourself, and move around in the application. You can also share routes, text chat, share photos and video, and even talk to each your friends over VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol).

It won't be a product you can buy; the company hopes to license it phone suppliers and carriers for their products.

- Venture Beat
Getting warmed up for Where 2.0

Posted: May 12th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

The event begins today; Directions Media will not be in attendance. But, with the wonders of modern communications, we can follow what's going on. Here's a preview of what's ahead based on pings from several companies making announcements:

FortiusOne will officially launch of ">Finder!, the first application of FortiusOnes GeoCommons Suite. Finder! aims to turn unorganized, unsearchable, and unusable data, thus inhibiting their ability into something useable, so that users can produce actionable geo-intelligence. And, apparently you can visualize the found useful data in a variety of products from ESRI, Google and Microsoft.
My Take: Sounds like this app will intersect a bit with ERDAS' Titan and WeoGeo's self-named offering.

Whrrl is the "mobile social discovery service" from Pelago. It links mapping and micro-blogging, though you don't have to "do anything" because it tracks where you to and compares it with where friends go. In short, you "vote" with your feet! Major announcements are planned for the spring and summer including "iPhone and BlackBerry support, a Facebook app, carrier deals, and LBS and WPS initiatives." Rafe Needleman at Webware revisited Whrrl and offers thoughts on themes that may be found at Where.
My Take: Whrrl seems to be more of a tool to create/find reviews/suggestions of interesting locations than a social network. And, no, I'm not sure what WPS means here. But, this one is hard to ignore - it's got some serious investors.

Lightpole, the company that invites you "to illuminate your place in the world using your mobile phone," plans to announce "both strategic partner and new content significance"
My Take: Sounds a bit like Whrrl, but the "social" aspect, again, is played down.

Schmap, the company behind online and desktop "city guides" is announcing iPhone support. I found Schmap just interesting as a desktop/Web app though I have to say its more compelling on a mobile. The big interface tease? When you preform a local search, results are displayed in a list when the phone is vertical; turn it horizontal to get a map!
My Take: While a bit less social than Whrrl and Lightpole, users can create their own Schmaps, a bit of a different twist.

EveryScape offers up just a tease: "EveryScape will unveil its new global expansion program and new Real World Online with enhanced community features."
My Take: Remember, EveryScape was out with its street facing imagery before Google's StreetView and Mapplets. The company may be ahead of Google yet again.

Seero is there to debuting its new GPS-enabled video streams. You'll be able to embed live GPS-ed video via a widget. See more at Mashable. The Seero folks will be broadcasting live from Where you can view the vids at Ogle Earth and GEB.
My Take: This could make for some interesting citizen journalism.
The Challenges to LBS Social Networking

Posted: May 7th, 2008, 2:13pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

Caroline McCarty at c|net offers up a great primer on the challenges facing location-enabled social networking by looking primarily at newcomer (in private beta) Brightkite, old hat Loopt, and older and Google-owned but rarely heard-from Dodgeball.

Key challenges:

- open the network to all or just some - should the app run on all phones, even ancient ones with no GPS and just texting capabilities? should the app be free? should the app be restricted to certain carriers? should you do a private beta and potential limit networks at startup?

- managing privacy and lists of friends - how do you keep annoying messages out of your "inbox"?

- where do you launch/grow such apps? business-y Web 2.0 (Brightkite was launched there) or social SXSW (South by Southwest, an arts, tech gathering) where Twitter took hold in 2007

Definitely worth a read if you are trying to figure out this space!
Loopt and privacy, market and future plans

Posted: May 6th, 2008, 1:52pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

E-Commerce Times interviews Brian Knapp, VP of Corporate Communications for Loopt, a carrier-based location-enabled social networking offering. Tidbits of note:

- targeting students/young urban professionals (those tuned in to "happy hour")
- no business users to date (save for non-biz use)
- working with many orgs to offer much privacy support
- differentiators: carrier-centric, automatically updates locations
- futures: current Facebook app, BlackBerry version coming, "excited" about iPhone potential

- MacNewsWorld
More on Brightkite

Posted: May 6th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

ArsTechnica talked with founder and CEO, Martin May. Among the tidbits of note:

He used to work at Local Matters.

The business plan appears, down the road, to include anonymous maps of where users go - specifically to which businesses. Sounds like a "Dash" to track personal behavior. I understand how businesses would be interested in such data; how will Brightkite entice users to provide it? And provide it accurately?

For now locations are updated via Web or SMS.
Twisney - another step forward for mashups?

Posted: May 5th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

Some time ago I noted how the next step in mashups (after map mashup 1.0 - putting locations on a map) was sites making their own data. I typically pointed to Zillow as an example. And, you could add any site that included user generated or user corrected data, I suppose. This week I ran into a mashup that is another sort of next step for geospatial mashups: Twisney.com It's built off Twitter, Flickr and Virtual Earth and from that you can probably guess that it's a way to post real time pics/comments to a map of Walt Disney World.

Users send images (via Twitter or e-mail) and put a location/comment in the subject. The site extracts keywords for locations (there's a reference list, but most things you'd think of should work; if they don't real humans figure out the location) and posts the images 'in real time' on the map. By default no contact address/real name is used, but optionally it can be included. There's no registration to use the service, nor a this time, a business model.

A few things make this mashup interesting:

- limited geography
- keywords (not GPS, or any other location technology involved)
- basic e-mail works; more tech savvy folks can use Twitter
- Disney not involved (too bad for them; it'd be a neat addition for its marketing!)
- quick growth with almost no PR (I found one article dated Apr 25 as I write May 3)
- can you imagine this for say the ESRI user conference?

Big shout out to For Immediate Release for noting this app. Frankly, I'm learning more about social networking from that podcast than from just about anything I read. Kudos to Shell and Neville (they are the hosts).
Two new location-enabled mobile/social apps get funding/buzz

Posted: April 25th, 2008, 3:05pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

Buzzd just got funding from Greycroft Partners and Monitor Ventures. It's a location-based city guide and social network service for mobile devices. The investment amount was not disclosed.

- RCRNews

BrightKite, though not being shown at Web 2.0 Expo, is getting lots of buzz. From WebWare: "It's a microblogging tool the likes of Twitter, Pownce, et al with some handy location-based features. What's the point you ask? It's got a whole lot more social networking built-in from the start. It also shares one of the things that made Meetro and Twinkle so cool, by letting you see what people around you are doing."
Trapster in Detail

Posted: April 7th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

Trapster is a free mobile/Web app that depends on users to post the locations of speed traps they see via their mobile phones. PocketNow offers a detailed review and gives it thumbs up, save for the need to install and use 11 separate little programs.
Facebook to Focus on Location?

Posted: March 28th, 2008, 2:35pm CET

Tags: Social Networking

Investments keep pouring in: First $240 million from Microsoft, then $60 million from Hong Kong business mogul Li Ka-Shing and today another $40 million (at least) from Ka-Shing. VentureBeat suggests that Ka-Shing's company Hutchison Whampoa will ease Facebook into China and perhaps be an entry to LBS.
Friend Density Maps on FaceBook

Posted: March 3rd, 2008, 1:00pm CET

Tags: Social Networking

Reader Kyle passed along news of a new Facebook app called Friend Density. It does what you'd think - plots the density (thematic heat map of sorts) of where your friends are. Apparently at launch it was not worldwide, but is now.

A few comments on The Wall note that this app is of interest to a few geography majors. Says one:
As a geography major and frequent GIS user, this is the first facebook application that I felt compelled to get!

In other Facebook news, Net Ventures, a Sydney-based development outfit that built "Shout Out," won Sensis' app contest and $15,000. It locates friends either as a Facebook plug in or a stand-alone app. The contest is for apps that use Sensis' Whereis platform.

- ZDnet Australia
Twixtr - Twitter for (Geocoded) Images

Posted: February 24th, 2008, 8:16pm CET

Tags: Social Networking

To keep up on new media I just added a new podcast to my regular list: "For Immediate Release." Some good tech stuff, in addition to PR fiasco's like the bugaboo caused when an anonymous source noted that Edelman teaches its staff to lie on behalf of clients. (From the top execs at Edelman: they do not!)

Anyway, of note this week was another social networking service from FON - a quick, mobile image services - sort of Twitter for images. It's called Twixtr and the big news for geo types - it automatigally geotags pictures with the location from which they were sent. The current client is for the (jailbroken) iPhone (others to follow). And, there's a public API. But of course, this is all in beta, so all the usual warnings apply.

Now about that geotagging - it's called "location guessing." (I like the truth in advertising there!) Per the FON founder's blog post, that geo information comes from cell carriers: "Also thanks to cell providers the iPhone also has some rudimentary geolocalization so that is tagged to the Twitx." I thought iPhone location information was from Skyhook.

In any case, while many are noting "we already have too many of these" things like Twitter, the one hot spot seems to be the addition of location.

via Simon Says blog (he's one of the guys on the FIR podcast)
CBS Mobile Explores LBS Ads With Loopt

Posted: February 6th, 2008, 1:00pm CET

Tags: Social Networking

CBS announced Wednesday some "serious experiments" using LBS advertising. CBS Mobile will deliver ads to its websites that are set up for mobile use based on GPS-enabled phone's locations. Loopt is providing the location tools, along with relationships with carriers.

- New York Times

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27 items tagged "Social and Networking"

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

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Posted: September 10th, 2008, 6:47pm CEST

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Posted: September 5th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

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Posted: August 28th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

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Posted: August 26th, 2008, 3:04pm CEST

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Posted: August 20th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

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Posted: July 25th, 2008, 2:22pm CEST

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Posted: July 21st, 2008, 2:36pm CEST

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Posted: July 10th, 2008, 5:14pm CEST

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Posted: July 8th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

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Posted: July 7th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

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Posted: June 27th, 2008, 4:20pm CEST

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Posted: June 9th, 2008, 2:14pm CEST

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Posted: May 27th, 2008, 2:52pm CEST

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Posted: May 21st, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

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Posted: May 20th, 2008, 2:16pm CEST

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Posted: May 12th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

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Posted: May 7th, 2008, 2:13pm CEST

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Posted: May 6th, 2008, 1:52pm CEST

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Posted: May 6th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

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Posted: May 5th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

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Posted: April 25th, 2008, 3:05pm CEST

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Posted: April 7th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

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Posted: March 28th, 2008, 2:35pm CET

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Posted: March 3rd, 2008, 1:00pm CET

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Posted: February 24th, 2008, 8:16pm CET

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Posted: February 6th, 2008, 1:00pm CET

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