LBS (Location Based Services) are relatively untapped at the moment but nice to see some interesting social LBS apps appearing. CitySense (here) have an app showing you where to go based on density of activity in San Francisco. It’s not the first, there have been a few – loopt.com have been offering social GPS tools for a while and even Optus had their GPS friend finder app (which unfortunately was a rip off charging >50c to show you the location of a mate).
Now that data plans are looking healthier and there are more phones with GPS, all we really need is better batteries – we all know GPS sucks the juice big time making these apps on your phone a little painful to have running. Alternatively it would be easier for us all if telcos could offer triangulated GPRS data to third parties. Yes, I know… privacy issues but nothing that couldn’t be overcome through permission based apps. IMO proprietary systems like CitySense will probably see limited success until the telcos finally switch onto the need and wide ranging consumer potential for LBS.
Credit to Jon Moss (Appleofmyi) for his post (here) on Citysense. Thanks Jon!
Wotcha’ guys and gals!
Thanks for the link and credit. I’m loving the scope for location awareness stuff – very, very exciting. However, for it to really gain traction there is going to be a BIG PR job to be done.
I say this, as when I tell my non-techy friends about it, all I have is “Weird”, “Big Brother” etc.
Citysense if rolled out across all big cities would be superb, and I am certain this will be happening for Facebook in the near future via the Facebook iPhone app.
I couldn’t agree more. Permission based LBS is the way to go. Great idea.
Best Regards.