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Location Based Offers (LBO) – valid business model or just more L-BS?

Following on from my recent post on “Foursquare fatigue”, and the recent launch of Facebook deals in the the UK, I thought it would be a good time to look at these initiatives, from both the consumer angle as well as the retailer. Anecdotal discussions with a number of retailers as well as consumers point [...]

Foursquare and the opportunity for location based social media

Foursquare seems to be in the news a lot recently, and is starting to exhibit a similar hype curve to that of Twitter. Update 15 March 2010: with one tweet from @mrskutcher (aka Demi Moore) the battle of the location based social media platforms is now over.  Now that she is on Foursquare and other [...]

IBM serves up an ace @Wimbledon

On Saturday 4th July, I visited the Wimbledon Championships as a guest of IBM, in relation to a book I am writing on the business use of twitter (more on this in an upcoming post). IBM, in conjunction with their advertising Agency Ogilvy has served up three brilliant applications for the 2009 Wimbledon Championships. You [...]

The new way of helping lost tourists – Google mobile maps

Being an expat Australian now living in London, I seem to always be the first to spot a lost tourist with an unfolded map in my local area. At the rate of about 2 a week at the moment, either I am approached for directions (I look friendly!) or I make the approach to lost souls [...]

Mobile industry predictions for 2009 part 1

As the year draws to a close, and as I did last year I thought I would prepare some thoughts on what might happen in the mobile industry in 2009. Looking back at some of my 2008 predictions – for some I was pretty spot on – and for others I was woefully incorrect. In [...]

BlogLoc: a simple where am I? for your blog

London Calling has a wide and varied audience, and sometimes on the comments section on individual posts we see some real gems. Last week, Rainer Simon at BlogLoc left a comment on my Locatik service launch post about his own location service. Curious to find out more, I headed over to www.blogloc.com to satisfy my [...]

Locatik location enabled social networking service now live

Since the Symbian smartphone show in 2007, I have been trialing the Locatik location based social networking service from the team at Psiloc. These are the guys who are well known for developing quality symbian software including psiloc connectwhich is the first application I load onto any new Nokia. It has now been released as version [...]

Google geolocation API gets the green light

As foreshadowed by Charles Wiles at the Mobile Monday London event in July, and as announced on the Google Mobile official blog as well as on Charles’ blog, the Google Gears API is now location enabled for both desktop browsers (via IP address) as well as mobile browsers (windows mobile only at the moment) using cell-ID or GPS. [...]

First look at the Nokia E71 after a week of power use

This post has just been featured at WOM World/Nokia. Just over a week ago I took delivery of a shiny new Nokia E71.  Those who have been following London Calling lately will know that I have been waiting excitedly for the E71 to be released, having been an early adopter of both the E61 and E61i. [...]

Who will win the location battle?

Google appear to be the front runners at the moment – is their lead assailable? With Google’s current domination of the maps space thanks to Google Maps, and their recent upgrade of mobile maps to include my location, and the rumours circulating that soon they will open up their cell-ID database API to third parties [...]

Mobile Monday London July 14th: enabling location in applications

It’s been over a year since Mobile Monday visited the subject of Location and now is a great time to revisit with a raft of alternate approaches to LBS. This month’s event is kindly sponsored by Skyhook Wireless and will be held on Monday the 14th of July at the usual venue of the CBI Conference [...]

Being-Digital June 10th: what are the hot topics in location?

I’m moderating the location stream at the Being-Digital conference in London on June 10th and I was wondering what readers of London Calling see as the hot issues in location. Here are some initial thoughts – and I’d welcome any comments below What value do consumers place on location? Can location information be viewed as inventory? [...]

Nokia Maps 2.0 graduates and gets “my location” feature

Welcome to All About Symbian readers – looks like we’ve had a flood of traffic from the post by Steve Litchfield titled Ruminations on cell-id location in Nokia Maps 2.0. I have been using Nokia maps for some time now, and following the launch of their V2.0 beta at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, I have [...]

Location Based Advertising – an introduction

Recently I was asked to respond to some questions around Location Based Advertising as part of an opinion piece. I thought it would be useful to republish my responses here, and promote some debate on the issue of location based advertising. What does location based (aware) advertising actually entail? Could you give some real life [...]

The geography of power – how communication has become a global currency and what it means for mobile advertising

I found a fascinating article in a recent edition of Newsweek called Emotional Connections. The article describes an installation at the New York Museum of Modern Art called New York Talk Exchange. Here, MIT have been provided with real time phone records from AT&T and they have a live map of the different connections happening [...]

Location based social network applications roundup and review

When not spending time with my family, I have been looking at a range of new and developing location based social network applications designed for the mobile.  A summary of each one is presented below with links to their websites. What I have seen in the first few months of the year is a rapid [...]

Is the GPS party about to end? Report points to SiRF job cuts and asks what has changed in the GPS world

Over at Gigaom, a story about SiRF Technologies laying off workers has started a discussion around “the end of the GPS party”.  Read the full article here Quoting from Gigaom “SiRF Technology (SIRF), a San Jose, Calif.-based maker of GPS chips, this morning said it was cutting jobs and trying to restructure its business due [...]

Will the rise of mobile social networking be the catalyst to drive location based services?

With the increase in the launch of mobile versions of social networking sites such as m.facebook.com m.linkedin.com m.twitter.com m.youtube.com m.myspace.com (ps notice a pattern here – no .mobi extension for these major sites – does this point to the fact that consumers will decree dot m is the winner) ..it got me thinking about the [...]

First look at Fire Eagle – the Yahoo! location aware service

A few weeks ago I read about the new Yahoo! location initiative called Fire Eagle.  Being a former practitioner in the Location industry, I rushed to the site, only to find I needed an invitation.  Luckily David Recordon from sixapart (movable type) was kind enough to send me one.  For those of you trying to [...]

The rise and rise of the GPS mobile – but not for mobile advertising

I noticed a story (with accompanying video) on the BBC Click website titled Rise and rise of the GPS mobile. Like many stories at the moment about GPS, the author makes a few generalisations. In the closing paragraphs, the BBC reporter Marc Cieslak notes “This location based technology does throw up the potential for annoying [...]

The Davos Effect – Google CEO Eric Schmidt expects mobile to be big – is he right and what has to happen to prove him right?

Much has been written on the “Davos Effect”, where the musings at this annual event from senior executives of large companies such as Google and Sony actually become true, or at least offer a window into the current thinking or focus of a particular company or industry segment. By now, many of you will have read the [...]

Google’s Eric Schmidt bulish on location based advertising

I caught the release from Reuters Google CEO bullish on mobile Web advertising which quotes from Eric Schmidt’s speech at Davos. Of interest, and quoting directly from the Reuter’s release… The arrival of a truly mobile Web, offering a new generation of location-based advertising, is set to unleash a “huge revolution”, Google Inc Chief Executive Eric [...]

Carnival of the Mobilists #107 is up at www.mobhappy.com

Over at MobHappy which Carlo Longino describes as the “spiritual home” of Carnival of the Mobilists, there is again a wide range of commentary on a range of subjects including… Dennis at WAP Review takes a look at mobile email WAP sites, and wonders why they don’t offer many of the same features as their [...]

iPhone finds its Mojo – Google My Location is a major plus for iPhone users

As a non iPhone user, I almost missed the news from Steve Job’s Mac World address that the iPhone would be receiving new firmware.  Because I don’t own the device, I have no need to update the firmware, but reading this official Google blog post, something caught my eye. Then over the next few days others [...]

First thoughts on Google My Location

I just had a look at the new Google My Location service launched this week. Being a Location expert, I have been looking closely to see how well it works.  On first pass, it is quite similar to the Psiloc Locatik service launched at the Symbian Smartphone show in London in October. The raw inputs to the [...]

Andrew Grill to speak at MobilMedia Kongress 2007

Andrew Grill will be presenting at MobilMedia  Kongress 2007 – Speaking on the topic “HomeZone and beyond” – how new location search and mobile marketing solutions can use location technology without needing GPS.  Other companies presenting include Microsoft and Tom Tom.  More details at http://www.mm-kongress.de/

Seeker Wireless targets European homezone market

Source: siddey.wordpress.com Having operated in “stealth mode” for nearly two years, Australian company Seeker Wireless has revealed that it is in the progress of deploying its high-accuracy mobile location based services enabling technology to a number of European mobile network operators. Formed in 2003, Seeker Wireless has developed a means to reach sub-100 metre location [...]