Location, Location, Location - the Ulocate Widget Platform, One to Watch #6

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, is excited about the future of Location-Based Services (LSB): "...location-based advertising will be a very good business and useful to the end user".

This was his comment at a panel discussion held at the WEF in Davos last week (see Andrew Grill's blog for his excellent post analysing the key messages of the session). Many share Schmidt's excitement about the prospects for LBS's, albeit few are clear as to exactly how and when these prospects will materialise.

One firm that could be positioned to benefit from growth in this area is Boston-based uLocate, owner of the 'Where' GPS widget platform, capable of automatically porting programs onto GPS-capable handsets and publishing them on US-based networks with access to millions of users.

uLocate is hoping for location-based widgets developed on their platform to experience the same kind of viral growth that Facebook experienced for some of its applications.Already a number of practical widgets have emerged, ranging from the 'Zipcar Car Sharing' widget allowing members to locate and view the nearest Zipcars on their mobile screen as well as instantly connect to Zipcar's reservation system to select a nearby vehicle, to the 'Nearbio' widget, enabling users to quickly find the closest biodiesel pumps.

In addition, uLocate also offers "BuddyBeacon", a geo-social networking service that is reminiscent of Plazes (but however lacks the geo-tracker functionality of Ipoki, for example).

If uLocate's platform takes off within the developer community, then we could see the company expanding outside of the US and take advantage of the popularity of its platform to access an ever-growing LBS market.Its partnership with Twitter to track users' whereabouts could also fuel growth for the company.And for a subscription fee of $3 a month, uLocate appears to be delivering value to its US-based end-users.

It already raised $11m im venture capital in May 2007 in an over-subscribed financing round, so access to funding could further power its dash to grab global market share in 2008.

Ipoki -one to watch #4

Ipoki, founded in Spain in 2006, believes users should have control over their location information and who can see it.

It is a GPS-based social network that uses Google Maps and Google Earth to track and locate friends and family.The system also allows you to record geolocated alerts and receive them in mobile terminals. It works via an Open Source plug-in compatible with a wide range of handsets. Mobile users without inbuilt GPS have the option of linking up via Bluetooth to their GPS terminal.

Ipoki is gaining fame for its 'Follow Me' killer ap, allowing users movements to be tracked or followed in real time.This allowed the company to win the Mashup of the Month Award last summer.The Ipoki widget is now also available on netvibes and igoogle with a future release planned for Facebook.

At the same time as a new improved beta version of the software is released, Ipoki is on the lookout for seed capital to finance its further expansion. Within one year of setting up, Ipoki had already received 100,000 visits and 20,000 downloads of its software. With their 'open' philosophy and global reach, this ambitious start-up has big plans for the future. I'll be covering their progress in the coming months -in the meantime, why not try their new release and feedback on your impressions?

POST-SCRIPT: I asked Andres (one of the Ipoki founders who was browsing my post earlier and whom I'd met at a Mobile Monday event) if he had a scoop for my blog readers. He announced that they were beta testing a new nifty feature for their plugin -a photo geotracker using Flickr. The idea is that as Ipoki tracks the user's position (at a point in time) it can also pinpoint photo locations by synchronising with the camera's clock and ta-dah! You have your photos automatically geo-tagged!

I also asked Andres how Ipoki's service differed to that of Plazes -he said that Ipoki is a true LBS, tracking people's position via GPS while you need to tell Plazes where you are all the time. This raises the question -if and when Plazes will shift to using GPS to automate its tracking process...