Location based services have been with us for some time now and the services provided by these startups have caught the attention of a lot of users. Recently, the introduction of foursquare and especially the users and traffic the service is generating has caught the attention of yahoo, Facebook and a lot of other giants. Popular services include Location based Social networking, Buddy Finder, Friend finder, location based Advertisement services, Traffic management, Car Parking guide, Emergency Services and location based games. Some of these ideas have been implemented pretty well whilst others are yet to catch on.
The following services were identified and they are all competing for your attention.
Loopt is well established in the location based social mapping service. It was first launched with boost mobile and later announced a deal with sprint. It can be used as a friend finder, tags places and create events. You can take a picture from your mobile phone, tag it with the current location and share the same with your friends.
Dodgeball can be used to broadcast your location or send messages to group of friends from you mobile phone. But you have to keep updating you location by sending sms messages.
Kakiloc is a location based social networking service.
Socialight
Social light is mobile location aware application that allows you to write notes about the favorite places you visit. A notification is sent to your friends who go around the same place. You can also write/create sticky notes on the map with your favorite place using the web interface.
ipling
Registration is free, once registered successfully you can create your own circle and look for matches outside the circle. Based on the text you type, you can get hooked with other social members in that area. It can be used as a mobile dating service. It has launched its service optimized for Apple iPhone enabling users to discover and communicate with people who share similar interests.
Foursquare Foursquare aims to encourage people to explore their neighborhoods and then reward peoplefor doing so. They do this by combining your friend-finder and social city guide elements with game mechanics — users earn points, win Mayorships and unlock badges for trying new places and revisiting old favorites.
Foodspotting is a visual local guide that lets you find dishes instead of just restaurants. It’s powered by Foodspotters, who can share their food photos and expertise while building a rich collection of foods and where to find them.
Gowalla is a location-based social networking game created by Alamofire. Users ‘check-in’ at Spots in their local vicinity, either through a dedicated mobile application or through the mobile website. As a reward users will sometimes receive items from check-ins.
Fiddme Fiddme aims to be your local visual guide to culinary wonders around you, exposing you to new places and interesting people in your area
Booyah allows you to buy and own your favorite real-life locations. Collect rent when other people check-in to your shops, Upgrade your shops to increase their value
Sacaya’s Buddy Tracker enables a subscriber to create a list of other subscribers and keep track of their location. It uses a easily scalable, configurable architecture to tailor services based on the subscriber’s location. It offers a very user-friendly GUI and web interface to make additions and deletions to the group or list of subscribers.
Brightkite is a location-based social networking website that is available on any mobile device. Users “check in” at places by using text messaging or one of the mobile applications and they can see who is nearby and who has been there before. The service was created in 2007 by Brady Becker, Martin May and Alan Seideman who previously founded the SMS notification service Loopnote.
Placecast creates game-changing solutions for location-based mobile marketing, advertising and content management.
TheHotlist is a geo-social aggregator that allows users to see where their friends were, are, and will be going. Some blogs describe it as Facebook events on steroids. [1] Using its social map, Hotlist provides a full view of the events, venues, parties and concerts that the user’s Facebook friends and networks visit. Every venue and event is backed with detailed analytics of friends attending, guy-to-girl ratio, age, live tweets, networks and photos of the attending crowd. It currently aggregates data from Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, and Google.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=1e11b22f-c003-493c-8740-4b2d684c27de)
Recommended Posts:
- Facebook.LinkedIn.Twitter.Google+. 4 Nations Competing For Your Attention
- SCVNGR-The Location-Based Game Takes On Foursquare At Times Square
- Telogis Raises $2.8 Million To Expand Location-Based-Services To Enterprises
- Loopt Adds Real-time Element To Location-based Deals
- SquawkMe Offers Social Video App with Location-Based Tagging
- Location Based Love: Two Million Singles Connect on Skout.com In 2010
- 25 Virtual Reality Worlds Competing For Your Attention
- Qriously Wants To Measure Location-based Public Sentiment in Real-time
We're not yet among the top 14, but soon. Then our product is great:
We combine gaming (real gaming, not points for using the software), great 3D-visual, location-based services and social networking.
Check it out on Gbanga.com. In two days, we will launch a new version of Gbanga.
I took a look at ghanga.com. I certainly will take a look again in two days time to see the new version.
Dodgeball (from 2000) was bought by Google in '05 and discontinued in early '09. In 2010, since it no longer exists, it's neither a "Startup" nor "Competing" any more. It might be considered changed to "Google Latitude" (GPS-and-IP-geolocation-based portion of Maps that Google replaced it with).
ok. Thanks for the info
P.S. Dennis Crowley and Alex Rainert, the cofounders of Dodgeball who later left Google in development-limbo frustration, cofounded Foursquare as the real replacement for Dodgeball — hence the to-very-similar logos. :)
Why did you remove my post… My post was actually useful unlike most of these comments. Ill post it again. Hiya guys, I spottet a excellent way to make a lot of money online blogging. I expect this is most likely for the website admin but there are probably alot more bloggers reading this. I have already made thousands using the techniques explained in the product and it has only been two months. Free Money Making Blog By Blogging To The Bank
mobile websites will surely grow in the following years,*;
Comfortabl y, the article is in reality the sweetest on that notable topic. I concur with your conclusions and will eagerly look forward to your coming updates. Simply saying thanks will certainly not just be enough, for the fantasti c clarity in your writing. I will certainly correct away grab your rss feed to stay privy of any kind of updates. De lightful work and also much success in your business endeavors!
Another interesting piece of writing coming from your blog :) Whenever does it end….ideally never
Thank you
Good blog! I really love how it's easy on my eyes and the facts are well written. I am wondering how I can be notified whenever a new post has been made. I have subscribed to your rss feed which ought to do the trick! Have a nice day!
there is a growing trend in mobile websites this year alone"`*
You missed Jobtrottr, it's a revolutionary local job search service that will change the way people look for jobs online.
Jobtrottr is the first real local job search engine that uses geo localization of job offers.
Jobtrottr leverages to power of crowd sourcing to enable user to move job posting to a more accurate location, report expired postings, add job related events and news.
Awesome Job once again. I enjoyed browsing your blog for the reason that you usually publish informative articles. Well written post..I will put this blog in my favorites list. I am planning to subscribe to your feed also. Does anybody possess the htc evo?? It is the best.
Thanks for the compliment. I will keep publishing the information you enjoy reading
glad to be one of several visitants on this awing site : D.
hmmm, i would love to browse mobile websites from now on, ~,'
@Tyrosine -what changed your mind
[...] are innovative, of course, because it makes for a great story. But I suspect most startups are just a variation on a theme — as are most successful [...]
I'll gear this review to 2 types of people: current Zune owners who are considering an upgrade, and people trying to decide between a Zune and an iPod. (There are other players worth considering out there, like the Sony Walkman X, but I hope this gives you enough info to make an informed decision of the Zune vs players other than the iPod line as well.)
Thanks highly a lot for providing such a great info inside the web. It’s certainly nice to determine that people are nonetheless publishing this kind of beneficial information and facts.
Really nice article you wrote here!
This writer is truly amazing with the amount of knowledge conveyed, and the in-depth descriptions used in the information. The article written would make a wonderful start for a weekly newsletter posted on the web.
This is one of those articles I truly enjoy reading. This content kept me engaged from the first line to the last. I agree with many of the interesting views you made in this article.
Wonderful article! I wish I had your insight on this topic and could write as well as you. I hope many people get the opportunity to enjoy this great content.
You have presented some interesting points in this article. It’s a lot of information to take in, but it’s so well-formatted that it’s easy to grasp. Thank you for writing this kind of quality material.
This is very impressive writing. I am pleased at how well you were able to make your points with such flair and passion. Good job.