GPS Obsessed

GeoFeeling is a visually enticing mashup that geolocates the emotions of bloggers around the globe.  Developed by 7oanna Labs, GeoFeeling uses the Google Maps API in combination with the We Feel Fine platform.  We Feel Fine is an “exploration in human emotion” put together by designers Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar.  It pulls data beginning with the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling” from blog platforms including MSN Spaces, LiveJournal, Blogger, Technorati and many others, and then analyses them to form a real-time emotional sentiment graph of people using the web.  GeoFeeling makes use of its API in order to help users visualize the data in a geographic fashion, and does a great job of it.

Twitter has just become my favorite location-aware application!  In a blog post today, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone revealed that a location API will soon be made available for developers to use in their applications.  Soon after, geolocation will be added directly into the Twitter platform enabling the addition of latitude and longitude coordinates to any tweet.

Just for the privacy concerned, Stone says that the feature will be turned off by default so users will have to turn it on manually.  Furthermore, Twitter won’t hold onto any location data for longer than necessary-though exactly how long the company will have it isn’t known.

I can’t help but wonder how this will affect developers of Twitter applications already utilizing location.  Currently, location is derived from whatever we happen to share in our profile.  While the new location API will help make established location-based Twitter apps better, will the eventual incorporation of location into the Twitter platform itself spell the end for these types of apps?

Whatever the case may be, developers will have access to the location API before it’s added to Twitter so they’ll have a bit of a head start.

I also wonder how this change will affect other location-based social networks such as Loopt and Whrrl.  Will Twitter become the all-powerful location-based application that destroys all others?

We knew it was coming…and it has come.  Google has launched Search with My Location for iPhone 3.0, or in other words, for the Safari browser.

As the Google Mobile Blog explains it:

“As of today, when you visit www.google.com from Safari on your iPhone 3.0, you can choose to turn on My Location by tapping on the link on the homepage. When you tap on the “update” link, your location will be updated and displayed right there on the homepage. Whenever you want to refresh your location, just tap the “update” link.”

For all you privacy freaks out there, you have to opt-in to use the feature and you can turn it off completely in the Preferences tab.

Right now, My Location in Safari is only available in English in the United States and United Kingdom.  Google says that other language and country combination’s will be available soon.

In my opinion, the wide majority of laptops and netbooks that come to market in the next couple of years will either have a built-in GPS chip or be compatible with some sort of location aware add-on.  PC maker Dell seems to think this is a good bet too, announcing a new GPS kit for its Inspiron Mini 10 netbook.  A combination of hardware and software, the Dell Wireless 700 kit has a Broadcom GPS chip packaged with ALK Technologies’ popular CoPilot navigational software.

The Wireless 700 kit will be able to determine your location via Wi-Fi and GPS, while CoPilot will provide 2D and 3D maps and voice-guided turn-by-turn directions.  While a suggested price and launch date haven’t been announced yet, Dell’s Wireless 700 GPS kit will be able to run on any Inspiron Mini 10 netbook running Windows XP, Windows Vista, and when it’s released, Windows 7.

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Facebook is finally embracing location-based advertising.  In response to consumer feedback, Facebook announced language and location targeting for its advertisers yesterday.

Location-Based Advertising

I’ve been waiting for Facebook to embrace location for some time now.  I was looking at it from an end user perspective, in essence wondering why Facebook’s mobile platform didn’t take advantage of the geolocation technologies embedded in most smartphones and mid-range handsets today.  My thinking has always been that if Facebook ever did add a location component to its mobile social network, several of the key LBS competitors such as Loopt and Whrrl would be in big trouble.  Essentially overrun by Facebook’s 175 million-and-growing active user base.  In this case, Facebook is turning to location from an advertising perspective.  But what this means is that Facebook is taking location seriously, and that it has the means to add geolocation to its platform whenever it wants.

The location targeting feature allows advertisers to target ads within a certain mile radius of the target location.  Initially the service will only be available in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom; and with radius choices of 10, 25, and 50 miles from the target city.  This doesn’t sound like much, but if you think of targeting an ad at a huge metropolitan location-Facebook uses Miami as an example-specifying a city name will only aim the ad at Miami, rather than all the suburbs and surrounding cities that most people include when thinking of Miami.  In highly populated cities, this allows advertisers to reach many more people with effectively targeted ads.

Language-Based Advertising

This is just a natural extension of local advertising.  The language targeting filter lets you target people speaking a given language in a certain area.  When you type in the language and location using the filter, you’ll also be returned the size of the target population.  For example, input Spanish language speakers in the United States and you’ll find a target population of nearly 1.1 million.

Currently Facebook is offered in 40 languages and 60 more are in development.  Judging by these numbers alone you can see how this could expand the reach and effectiveness of an ad.

A Geolocal Facebook

So the question remains: will Facebook integrate location into its social networking platform?  That remains to be seen.  It may not have too.  But one thing is for sure-expect to see Facebook begin offering hyperlocal mobile ads sometime in the future.