If you happen to be a WHERE developer with a fear of Armageddon, natural or man-made, you might be interested in the America’s Emergency Network Mobile GPS Edition WHERE widget.  Wow, that’s a mouthful.  But the new widget enables you to be alerted of nearby disasters by finding your physical GPS location.  Supported on Nokia S60, J2ME and Blackberry phones, AEN Mobile can display text bulletin alerts, show you disaster areas on a map, and even show you real-time traffic and weather data to help you plan your escape.  Handy little app in these end times!

via thinkabdul

Virgin Mobile is the latest handset carrier to get caught up in the location-sensation of late, teaming up with New York-based buzzd to bring localized entertainment information to users through the carrier’s WAP deck.  Users will be able to tap reviews and ratings for popular venues such as restaurants in addition to event guides, all in real time, or contribute their own two cents and share it with friends in the general vicinity.

Much like popular applications such as Yelp, WHERE, and Citysense, buzzd aims to “turn the cell phone into a remote control that accesses the best a city has to offer”.  Entertainment information is editorially-driven and aggregated not only from user-generated feedback, but through mobile content partnerships with the likes of Flavorpill, TimeOut, and Zagat.  User-generated content is layered at the top of the handset display so user’s can easily see the latest in real-time feedback and friends can also be accessed via SMS making a rendezvous at the coolest nightspot a cinch.

Sound interesting?  Only available in the United States, you can register by texting ‘join’ to 96321 on a Virgin Mobile handset or by heading over to Virgin XL and clicking on the ‘buzzd’ link.

via cellularnews

(Photo Credit: Techcrunch)

In talking with uLocate Communication’s Dan Gilmartin a couple of weeks back, we were aware of a partnership with Sprint somewhere down the line.  Now the details are official and when Sprint rolls out its WiMAX mobile broadband network, dubbed XOHM, in Baltimore next month, uLocate’s WHERE platform and friend-finding application Buddy Beacon will form the backbone of what Sprint calls a “largely location-centric experience”.

With the new XOHM service, Sprint aims to jump on the growing popularity of location-based services and provide a “geobrowsing effect” that incorporates location context into the mobile browsing experience.  Not only will XOHM apply to cellular devices, but any mobile device connected to the WiMAX network, including automotive PND’s, laptops, portable media players, and even digital cameras.

Perhaps the most impressive part of XOHM is its openness.  Sprint will make the XOHM API’s available to 3rd parties so they can create their own location apps on the XOHM network, improving its usability.

While uLocate is Sprint’s primary partner in the XOHM rollout, they aren’t the only name of note.  Yelp, Eventful, Topix, Navteq, AccuWeather, Google, Openwave Systems, and Autodesk will add their own location context to the new service.  Look for XOHM to rollout in both Chicago and Washington, DC in the fourth quarter.

via arstechnica

Garmin looks to be bringing a bit of a more personal experience to some of their devices, partnering with Boston-based uLocate to bring the popular Where application to a selection of unnamed navigational devices.  This looks to be huge for both parties.  Not only does Garmin benefit from Where’s rich variety of widgets, everything from Yelp’s restaurant reviews to GasBuddy’s gas price comparisons to Facebook, but uLocate now has a presence on the platform of America’s number one PND maker.

It would be great if Where was available on Garmin PND’s.  Not only would it make the device’s exponentially more useful, but relative to the  value added Garmin probably paid next to nothing, multimillion dollar deal or not.  So far though, Where has largely been a player in the wireless world and given its huge popularity on the 3G iPhone we’d also expect to see Where featured on Garmin’s nuviphone.

It would definitely make sense, but so far neither company has verified anything.  We’ll keep you updated as we find out more.

via cnet

uLocate’s WHERE application which powers more than 40 location-based services ranging from Buddy Beacon to PubWalk is available for the iPhone in the United States, but what about other GPS-enabled AT&T handsets?  Thanks to a partnership between uLocate and AT&T announced yesterday, anyone with a GPS-enabled mobile phone on the AT&T network will now have access to all of the services provided by the WHERE platform.

And for those have a handset from AT&T that isn’t GPS-enabled?  While WHERE has an application for you too.  Remember there’s always cell tower triangulation and WiFi hotspots for pinpointed your location.  As uLocate expands their location-based offerings, you’ll have access to an even greater variety of services making it a sure bet you’ll never have trouble finding the nearest Starbucks or Zipcar location in your area ever again.  Check out the full press release after the jump.

[Read more →]

According to ABI Research the answer to the above question is yes.  By 2013, location-based social networks accessed on mobile phones will be a $3.3 billion business globally.  How much money they make now is negligible.  In fact, web-based social networks such as Facebook that have user numbers exponentially greater than the likes of Loopt and Whrrl still aren’t doing all that well.  VentureBeat reports that Facebook only expects to bring in a maximum of $350 million in revenues in 2008, three times that of 2007, but only roughly $9.78 per profile (a rough estimate from 35, 780, 441 unique visits).

Surprisingly though, mobile advertising won’t be the big driver of earnings in mobile social networking.  ABI Research says if anything, dollars will be generated by licensing and revenue-sharing models with wireless carriers.  If this is this case, then networks such as Loopt, carried by all major US wireless carriers are in a good position as is uLocate’s Where platform on which is built many mobile social networks.

Things could change in the next few years though.  Giant web-based networks like Facebook and MySpace will likely become mobile-friendly and with such giant user bases pose a serious threat to the present big names in location-based mobile social networking.  Loopt seems to know this, recently announcing the upcoming integration of Facebook Connect into their service allowing access to both networks’ profiles.  If you can’t beat them, join them, right?

There are still complications in mass adoption of mobile social networking at the present time.  First is privacy concerns.  Knowing that anyone in the world can know your exact location at any time is enough to cause nightmares for anyone.  And without unlimited data plans, playing around for hours on Loopt or their competitors platforms can be expensive.  Guaranteed though, by 2013 these two currently-big issues will be non-issues altogether.

The Quibblo Polls widget for the 3G iPhone is a free location-aware widget-based application available from the iTunes App Store powered by WHERE.  Quibblo says they are “not a traditional social network, but rather a distributed platform that enables users to collect valuable input from the broader community where others are able to weigh in on the topics that interest them, be it here at Quibblo.com or on any site that uses our technology”.  With the app you can create your own polls, surveys, or quizzes, take polls developed by others, and then look through results by geography.  In fact, you can narrow down survey results by others who have taken it within a 10 mile radius of your location.

You can also display polls on your web-based social networks such as Facebook and add friends like any typical social site.  And just today Quibblo added a new feature that allows you to upload an image to the title of your quiz adding a whole new dimension of possibilities for this unique social network.  For those of you that decide to download Quibblo for you iPhone, you’ll also be able to access other WHERE-powered apps such as Buddy Beacon.

via theanygeoblog

WHERE, a popular location-based application from uLocate Communications, is a huge hit at the iTunes App Store, downloaded over 125, 000 times since the 3G iPhone was released last Friday.  With up to 100 activations per second, WHERE has even been dubbed by The Wall Street Journal’s Walter Mossberg as one of ten iPhone apps that are a must-see.

WHERE is a widget-based platform that aggregates local information from other services such as Eventful, Yelp, GasBuddy, Zipcar, Starbucks, and uLocate’s very own Buddy Beacon.  Some of WHERE’s new location-based features include Quibblo, a location-aware polling service, SkyMap, a map of none other than the sky, Zipcar, pointing you to the nearest Zipcar location, and HeyWhatsThat, a 360 degree panorama of the skyline that names mountain peaks.

The WHERE app is available for free for both the iPhone and iPod Touch in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

via press release