Goodbye LBS, Hello Location-Awareness: The Groupon Example

I have been having several conversations, interviews and online debates around LBS, the opportunities for LBS services and the degree of hype of LBS (for example, compared to Augmented Reality).


This has made me come to two conclusions:
1. There is confusion over the difference between LBS and Location-Awareness
2. There is a lack of awareness (excuse the pun) that LBS no longer exists


I have to thank Tomi Ahonen for helping me crystallize my thoughts on the subject.

There is still a great deal of misunderstanding in the use of the term 'location based services'. This term is now outdated-services that simply provide location and nothing else are a thing of the the last decade.

We now should refer to these as 'Location-Aware applications' or location-aware services..Why? Because location is a feature not a service in its own right. As such, location is being embedded everywhere, because it is phenomenally useful on mobile devices. 

Take Groupon, for example. Billed the fastest growing company in the US in 2010, with over $500m in revenues for that year, Groupon has built a global success story based on offering localized offers and discounts via e-coupons. Last but not least, it became profitable after six months.

Given that Groupon is a location-based service with a full suite of location-aware applications, we could argue that it is a LBS (and a very successful one at that). But location is not the service it offers, it is merely a feature of its service (location awareness allows nearby offers to be delivered more easily).

This is not simply a question of semantics. The point is that location has allowed Groupon to unlock a great deal of value for its service by being embedded within it. In a similiar fashion, location awareness is allowing and will allow a great deal of businesses to create value within their mobile service.

Are location-aware services over-hyped today? I don't think so. On the contrary, I think most companies are only just beginning to realize the huge potential of embedding location (and accurate location, at that) within their mobile offer or service. 

We can safely close the door on the world of LBS (it was a hell of a ride) and say hello to the world of 'location-everywhere' with location-awareness increasingly embedded as a feature on the majority of newly launched mobile services.

Location Trends 2011 & Why Contextual Search is one step closer

I was due to present at Mobile Monday Oslo last week, when a Spanish air traffic controllers strike prevented me from catching my flight. I was going to present ideas from my book on Location Aware Apps (with co-author Murat Aktihanoglu, published by Manning-USA) as well as take a look at the current and future trends for location on mobile.

While my talk may have been postponed, I've decided to share the presentation deck I prepared here so that those who were looking forward to hearing it can at least get a flavour for it (see below).

My key conclusion: location today is everwhere. We can now archive the term Location Based Services (LBS) and think more of location-aware apps. I was listening to Marissa Mayer speak at the LeWeb conference in Paris a couple of days ago (via Ustream) and she made a point of stating that Google is working hard to make contextual awareness (or contextual search in Google-speak) a reality. 

This is great news, as I have been stating for the last couple of years that contextual awareness is the holy grail for mobile apps. I also mention this at the start of my book and explain why this is so. We are now a (big) step closer to achieving it...

"Location Everywhere" -Mobile Location Trends 2011

View more presentations from Ric Ferraro.

MoMo Malta -Video of the session on Location Awareness in Mobile

I had the real pleasure of being invited by Rene' at MomoMalta to give a presentation on Location Awareness Apps and share the ideas from my recently published book on the subject (see link on right side bar).

Malta is set to see growth in its mobile sector, with increasing competition amongst operators set to drive data tariffs down and greater demand for smartphones. Location based services are relatively new (apparently I was the first to present on the subject in Malta in its history!) but the use cases are growing. One of the examples of location apps which was experiencing phenomenal growth was the Groupon app (I will share the entire presentation shortly).

They made an excellent video of the event, which I am sharing here. Enjoy!

Location, Mobile App Monetization and Mobile Entrepreneurship

I recently gave a video-interview to Rene' of Mobile Monday Malta ahead of my talk there in early October on the ideas from my book on Location Aware Applications.

The vidcast covers the areas of Location, monetization of the mobile channel, entrepreneurship and the specific opportunities and challenges in Malta.

You can take a look at the interview here:

The Contextual Holy Grail of Location -WHERE Inc moves us one step closer

I have been presenting my ideas on Location-Aware services for some time now, and a key idea I originally presented is that of a 'Contextual Holy Grail'. This is the idea that location on its own is useful but that 'location+context' is the future for these services. If I am travelling to a ski resort and check my weather forecast app, I would like it to recognise where I am heading to automatically and (again automatically) provide latest snow condition reports.

Yesterday, WHERE Inc, one of the early location pioneers based in the US, obtained a patent that could take us one step closer to fulfilling at least part of this contextual requirement. Their Auto-Snap technology allows location relevancy and intent to be detected. While this patent is, admittedly, designed for delivering more targeted ads, it also opens up the possibility of other targeted services to be delivered.

You can read the full press release below:

WHERE AWARDED AUTO-SNAP™ PATENT

Patent Improves the Relevancy of Place Recommendation to a User on a Mobile Phone

BOSTON, MA – October 12th, 2010 – Where, Inc., North America’s largest location-based media company, today announced that the Company has received approval from the U.S. Patent Trademark Office for their Auto-Snap™ patent. Where’s Auto-Snap technology creates an association between a person and a place, which enhances the ability to derive intent resulting in improved relevance of place recommendations. 

Auto-Snap uses distance tolerances, landmark patterns, temporal patterns, knowledge of business attributes, knowledge of event occurrences, season or weather knowledge, common place names, user saved places and other types of factors and techniques. 

“With Auto-Snap we are able to determine location relevancy and intent of a consumer,” said Walt Doyle, CEO of Where, Inc. “With this technology, we can better understand the context of a person’s location and improve the match rate for content and ads delivered on our network. Auto-Snap lets us know if a user is at home, in the office or at a favorite restaurant giving us the unique ability to improve the overall WHERE consumer experience and better align the relevance of the WHERE Ads we deliver.” 

Auto-Snap is also being used in WHERE Ads to improve the relevance of display advertisements and search results, including offers and discounts, creating a better experience for the consumer and optimized yield for publishers.  

“Enhancing the relevancy of advertisements is one of the top priorities in the mobile ecosystem. WHERE has proven their ability to deliver great results for a strong pool of advertisers, and we count them among the best ad networks in the space. We look forward to learning more about Auto-Snap—an exciting new technical innovation,” said Marc Theermann, Vice President Mobile, AdMeld.

App Store Rankings–Distribution Strategies for iPhone and Mobile Apps

The following is a short extract from chapter 11 on 'Distributing your Application' within Part III 'Creating Winning LBS Businesses' in my forthcoming book, Location Based Services (written with co-author Murat Atkihanoglu), available for pre-order here.

“There is a certain shroud of mystery surrounding exactly how App Stores work, with the various players involved guarding most of their cards close to their chest. And while there may have been 3 billion reported downloads from Apple's iTunes store, it is anyone's guess how many of the apps downloaded were later removed from the device.

First, the bad news: getting your consumer to discover or find your app within an App Store is difficult. The iTunes Store is a case in point: with over 140,000 apps available in over 30 individual country stores, finding an app you don't know the name of is extremely difficult.

Now, the good news! You can significantly increase the odds of becoming a popular app by understanding the dynamics of how App Stores work.

A good 'discoverability' strategy will consider the following:

• App Rankings
• App Reviews
• App Analytics
• App Discoverability Services

Let’s take the first item, App Rankings. What exactly do we mean by App Rankings and how are they measured? Rankings work by taking the most downloaded apps within a short space of time, typically 24 hours. As they are regularly updated, there is a lot of upwards and downwards movement within the list, but entering the list as a newbie app requires considerable effort.

Some App Stores, like iTunes and Android Market, publish rankings within the store itself and there are tools such as App Gems (pictured above) that allow you to monitor global rankings for Top 300 iPhone apps.

Why are rankings important? The simple answer is, the better the ranking, the greater the downloads your app will receive, as it gives your app greater exposure.”

Google Acquires AdMob-what say you, mobile?

AdMob announced today in a mailing to its customers that it was being acquired by Google for $750m.

"After our deal closes, AdMob will work with Google to accelerate the pace of innovation in mobile and do an even better job for you. We believe this deal will benefit our developer and publisher partners by:

Building even more powerful technology and tools to monetize mobile traffic.

Increasing the effectiveness of display advertising on mobile devices by leveraging Google sales team, infrastructure and relationships.

Improving the already high level of service and support we deliver to our publishers."

said Omar Hamoui, from AdMob in his email earlier today.

But what does this mean for mobile advertising?

Google's logic for making the deal is to ramp up its position in mobile advertising, seeing that growth in this ad market is likely to be higher than in traditional Pc-based web. It also can be interpreted as a sign that its own AdSense product for mobile was not sufficient in itself to give Google the edge in this market.

Where Google can really innovate is in the area of location based advertising on mobile, by stepping in the gap being left wide open by all the big mobile ad networks (who have capability to deploy LBS ads but lack the commitment from other members of the mobile ecosystem). It is no secret that Google has the best generic mapping product in the market (which was also skilfully deployed on mobile).

By combining its current capabilities with its web know-how and AdMob's mobile ad network, Google is now in a great position to transform the market and can deploy quickly, thanks to its Android platform.

Mobile Location Services 09, London 12-13 May

LONDON- Now in its 13th edition, Informa's Mobile Location Services 09 conference taking place in London at the Ambassador's Bloomsbury Hotel, is the key event of the year for all those involved with LBS-related services.

The event will look at the current and future state of the LBS market and operators will say their bit on how they are looking to drive up ARPU with new applications.

I will speaking about how to leverage social networking within LBS and strategies for achieving critical mass in community size.

Readers of my blog get a special 25% discount to attend the event so just mail info@mobverge.com or send me a tweet @ricferraro.

Mobile World Congress (MWC)-Expectations in 2009

BARCELONA-The 2009 edition will be the 3rd MWC I will be attending, but am sure that the flavour of this year's event will be quite distinguishable from that of previous editions.

Last year's MWC was undoubtedly the year with the greatest emphasis on mobile content, with the Content Zone area expanding greatly compared to earlier years. It was also the year which marked the foray of new players in the handset market, such as Asus and Garmin.

This year is seems that the organisers have made a more earnest effort to showcase innovation at the event, with greater floor space dedicated to both local and international mobile start-ups. This is absolutely fundamental, as innovation is unlikely to come from the existing incumbents, who are dragged down by declining revenues, limited credit facilities and unhappy shareholders.

But, the mobile marketplace is a complex ecosystem, and innovation will only flourish if most stakeholders make more than just a token effort to support new ideas. Key to this are the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), whose essential support role has been hankered by a blinkered approach to innovation (we want it, but won't risk anything to get it).

Some signs of change are emerging, with MNOs on the acquisition trail for new concepts they understand (view Zyb's acquisition by Vodafone for example). While this buying-in of innovation is great (it supports many an exit strategy documented in start-up business plans) it doesn't per se do much to support the launch of new, daring services (such as LBSs).

My hope for the MWC this year is to see MNOs recognising that opening up their network to innovative startups is not only commendable, but that it is the only way that they can maintain sustainable growth in the mid to long term and drive new users and greater usage to their increasingly core data package offerings.

LeWeb08-Google's Mayer tips Local Search as key opportunity for 2009

PARIS-Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Product & User Experience at Google, gave an insightful view on various challenges facing both Google and its competitors in terms of Search.

Marissa pointed out that there is still some way to go to improve search (harking back to a previous interview she had given where she had stated that 90% of the work on search has been completed but that the last 10% was the tricky part).

One area where Google is looking to improve its game is in personalised search, with the recent launch of the Google Search Wiki seeking to test the waters in this area.

Another area, is search through devices other than the PC, notably through a mobile phone and, linked to this,voice-activated search.

Loic le Meur asked Marissa whether she thought any improvements in video search were in the pipeline. She answered that improvements are imminent in detecting voice within video and searching on this. However, graphic recognition (e.g.of a face in a video) is still a few years away partly due to YouTube's success and the proliferation of video content on the web.

Finally, and critically for companies in the LBS space, Marissa stated that "local search is one of the big opportunities in 2009".

Location Mobile Trends for 2009 LBSs

The Location Based Service (LBS) sector of Value Added Services (VAS) on mobile is evolving.

I see 3 key trends and a similiar number of challenges for the year ahead for companies within the expanding LBS ecosystem:

TRENDS:

1. COMPETITION

There is little doubt that this sector is heating up, with both the iPhone and the Android platforms spawning a plethora of applications. And the global start-up map for LBS indicates that new ventures are emerging outside of traditional hotbeds like the US and Western Europe. This means that differentiation is becoming key. Start-ups with the big budgets can choose to differentiate via advertising (though this is becoming unviable-see point 3 of Challenges below) while smaller companies need to think smart and go for whatever niche they think offers the best returns.

2. PREMIUM CHARGING

It is apparent that consumers are ready to pay a premium for some LBS services, though this is on a more pay-per-use model than a subscription model. Quick and easy services that everyone can understand and that add immediate value (place me on a map now and show me Points of Interest around me) can be charged successfully and it is looking increasingly likely that pedestrian navigation-type services will also meet with success.

3. CONVERGENCE

Convergence spans a wide spectrum of meaning. In terms of LBSs, it means that traditional LBS services are moving into the Portable Navigation Device (PND) space, and that the reverse is also happening. It also means that connected devices like the Playstation Portable (PSP) are also moving into the LBS space with the likelihood of new devices entering the market (including the rumoured launch of the National Geographic Explorer Device).The LBS landscape is liable to some tectonic shifts in the coming year.


The LBS sector has consistently offered some of the greatest opportunities but also some of the greatest challenges in mobile, some that I would highlight today are as follows:

CHALLENGES

1. OPERATOR RESTRICTIONS

Fortunately for the mobile ecosystem, walled gardens are crumbling and we are seeing what I have previously defined as 'Open Playgrounds' being created. This doesn't stop Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) from imposing limitations on accessing their location platforms. No MNO currently offers anything other than 'pull' mechanisms for location detection (the user has to request to be located) while it is the 'push' mechanisms (tell me automatically where I am and push relevant info to me) that would yield the greatest benefits to the user.

2. SEAMLESS LOCATION DETECTION

Locator technologies are in themselves converging as the need to deliver a seamless location detection service to the mobile user becomes more of an imperative. 2009 will see an acceleration of this trend and successful apps will be able to switch automatically from a GPS to a Wi-Fi to a CellID environment according to the criteria that deliver the best experience to the user (this could be related to location, so delivering Wi-Fi location indoors or battery life, switching to CellID to reduce battery exhaustion).

3. MONETISATION

The monetisation model for LBSs has not been proven.But it will. And even if it takes time, let's not forget how long it has taken YouTube to adopt a clear monetisation mechanism (it announced today that it will offer sponsored video search, 3 years after launch). However, there is a tiresome task pending for LBSs to continue educating brands and advertisers of the potential effectiveness of LBS advertising (particularly that which links place with context). However, we live in a period of retrenchment-MNOS are retreating in their shells and curtailing infrastructure spend. Some, but not all, advertisers are cutting back on mobile and retreating to less effective media like TV.

Now is the time for LBS start-ups to redraw the lines of their monetisation models-to squeeze out revenues where they can be squeezed and cut costs in other areas. Highly funded start-ups with high burn rates will need to adapt more to the new low cost environment. The opportunities for small start-ups with smart monetisation ideas will peak next year-but their emphasis will have to be on easily addressing the true needs of the mobile user, requiring an understanding of the likely behaviour of this user in the new economic environment.

The Evolution Of Mobile Web

I'm going to Seoul for the KoreaComm 2008 hosted by the Korean Communication Commission with over 2000 professionals expected to attend over the two day event on 30-31st October.

I'll be giving a talk on the evolution of mobile web broaching such subjects as 'are we at Mobile 2.0 yet' and picking out a few key trends I've noticed over the last year.

I'll be dedicating some time to discussing the evolution of Location Based Services and the convergence between Mobile Social Networks and LBS's. Not only are services based around location quintessential to what makes up Mobile 2.0, but the whole area of LBS is going mainstream as it navigates its way through the famous hype curve..witness Loopt's sponsoring of The Middle Show in the US.

I'll post more from the event over the next few days as well as share my presentation online.

deCarta devCON08-San Francisco 22-24 October

deCarta, one of the enablers behind NokiaMaps, is hosting its Development Forum, devCon08, at the Intercontinental Hotel in San Francisco on the 22-24th October 2008.

The event will cover a wide range of development issues surrounding location on mobile, with both lecture-based and workshop-based sessions. The rough agenda is as follows:

• Business and Industry sessions to provide the latest perspectives on mobile LBS market trends, technology requirements, roadblocks and opportunities, with individual presentations and panel discussions featuring some of the industry's leading experts.

• Technical sessions going deep on topics such as advanced navigation capabilities, geo-coding, enabling the mobile Internet, real-time and thematic data integration, traffic, platform scalability, best practices for sat nav system UI design, and so on.

• For developers who are new to location applications or deCarta's technology, a series of sessions will provide an accelerated course on developing applications using deCarta's DDS platform, Web Services and powerful JavaScript API, as well as deCarta's Nav.Net, and Internet connectivity for advanced personal navigation devices and smartphones.

• A full-day, hands-on Developer's Workshop on the first day will be custom-tailored to help you accelerate your mobile application development.

For more info and to sign up, link through the title to the event website.

Diary of a Mobile Internet Startup -GeoMe

BARCELONA-Like most bloggers out there, it may come as no surprise to you readers that I also have a day job -and an exciting one at that! I run an emergent startup in the mobile space called GeoMe...so, what do we do?

We are planning to launch a Location Based Service this year that will offer best-in-breed services aimed at a specific target group. As much as I would love to tell you readers more about our concept, unfortunately at this stage everything is still hush-hush, but I did want to share my experiences in setting up the business in a kind of startup diary that some of you budding entrepreneurs may find useful...

BIRTH OF A MOBILE STARTUP

Our startup saw its first light in 2007, born out of a discussion in a bar between 2 of the founders and their desire to do something new using location on mobile. Subsequent discussions followed, then workshops were held with experienced mobile professionals and developers until the core concept took a definitive shape.

My role upon joining was to take this exciting opportunity and turn it into a business proposition for a whole range of stakeholders, be they mobile operators, potential investors, collaborators and other techy companies.

I would say that one of my challenges at this stage was to keep our focus, as inevitably every time we explained our concept to someone new, different ideas on how to develop things would emerge.

Our strengths right from the word 'Go' were the team we built up around our new concept and the clarity we had around our brand and market positioning.

THE FIRST 6 MONTHS OF LIFE

The first few months have been enormous fun but also an emotional rollercoaster for everyone involved-a lot of excitement would build up when we got great feedback for our concept and even verbal comittment to x, y or z. Then, stakeholders would take a long time to make a decision or miss agreed deadlines and somehow we'd be back to square one.

Then suddenly, we'd get a break and have big corporations open doors to us and our concept and we'd all be back on an emotional high again...maybe a familiar story not just for mobile entrepreneurs but all those setting up new ventures out there...nerves of steel definitely help in coping with the inevitable dose of uncertainty surrounding a startup.

TODAY

The future for GeoMe is bright, as time and time again we receive encouraging feedback to our concept and our demo from different corners of the world.

We are currently working on our website, so that we can share our vision with the wider world and get people to sign up for our beta version as soon as it is released -exciting stuff!

Other things are happening too, which I will share with you shortly -so keep your RSS feeds open!

Future of Location Based Services...according to Navteq

BARCELONA -I was at the Forum Nokia Camp in Barcelona today and attended the presentation by Tom Tierney, Developer Alliance Manager at Navteq, based in Chicago.

Here are some tidbits from his presentation:

• Referring to the difference between PNDs (Personal Navigational Devices) and mobiles, Tom described the mobile device as being the 'navigational ringtone' for the user and sees the PNDs and mobiles to be complimentary instead of competing for the same audience

• Some new technologies not everyone has heard of yet were discussed -namely P-Cell Technology (developed in Korea) and TV-GPS Hybrid Positioning...I will investigate and report back if there are interesting developments in these areas

• According to Tom, the use of audio, touch screens and voice interactivity will eliminate the need for banner ads in the future

• Unsurprisingly perhaps, Tom stated that LBS's will be ubiqitous in the future. Also, according to Navteq's own research, consumers principally want 3 things from them -for them to be cheap, accurate and easy-to-use

• According to Navteq, consumers will pay for navigation and gaming applications but not for social networks and search (in line with internet trends)

• To put figures to the growth opportunity we are talking about here, in Q1 2008, 43% of all downloads on mobile phones globally were for Location Based Services..accounting for 62% of total revenues...a sizeable pie which is clearly growing as we see LBS being demanded for Resource Management or Asset Tracking, Entertainment (including Location based dating) and Security (Child Finder features etc.)

The Year of Location Based Services (LBS)

BARCELONA -I attended a great seminar on Wednesday at the Mobile World Congress, where various panellists presented and then debated their view on LBS's for 2008, including Nokia's Michael Halbherr and Googles' Gummi Hafsteinsson.

Nokia kicked off the session by stating their expectation to ship 35m handsets with GPS in 2008 and that all N-series will come equipped with in-built GPS. Michael also stated that increasingly, Nokia is looking to incorporate a compass for navigation within their handsets (making the vision outlined in my earlier post on 'Point to Discover' one step closer).

A key note from Nokia was that LBS were 'really about the pedestrian experience', a point that is sometimes lost amongst the noise surrounding LBS.

Onwards to Gummi from Google, who emphasised that for LBS's to work they need to get 3 things right: Openness, Comprehensiveness and Juxtaposition of Data.

Other key items discussed were: the need for educating the consumer on the usage of GPS functionality and for hybrid solutions that can ensure location coverage in all situations (GPS outdoors and Wi-Fi hotspots indoors) as well as the trend towards 3D mapping, with the height of buildings in urban areas being an important factor in adding relevance to a LBS.

Finally, the panellists concurred that in the same way as Web 2.0 was all about the comunity effect, so will the success of future LBS applications be determined by community-generated content.

Point to Discover (P2D)-the LBS of the future?

Location-based services (LBS) are receiving plenty of buzz these days. However, what I consider to be exciting is to look at the future possibilities for these services that lie beyond our current reckoning.

The idea of the mobile device as a pointer came up recently at the CES in Las Vegas -where we saw some prototypes of handsets capable of projecting their screen's image when pointed at a blank wall.

Rainer Simon of the Telecommunications Research Centre in Vienna published a paper last year where he gives us an insight into the possibilities of P2D (Point to Discover) technology.

In his paper he asks us to: "Imagine you could point your mobile phone at a bus stop to find out when the next bus is leaving; or point at a tourist landmark to get travel guide information; at an advertisement billboard to take part in a prize draw; or at a mountain top to find out the name of the mountain while you are hiking or skiing". Sounds pretty neat, doesn't it?

Rainer also goes on to postulate that the handset of the future may well come equipped with tilt sensors and digital compasses that would turn them into true interactive, navigational devices. Eventually, handsets could be able to recognise the 3D landscape around them and compute schematized 360-degrees panoramas , presenting nearby buildings and points of interest in a simple skyline-view that scrolls horizontally as the user turns.

Some food for thought for the good folks over at Google Mobile Maps, who may well be testing how to build this future functionality into their current application as we speak...

uLocate Update-Major Carrier Launch Announced

I talked about up-and-coming uLocate in a recent post, and how the company was positioned to grab a substantial chunk of the LBS market in the US.

They announced just yesterday the signing of a new carrier, AT&T, growing to six the number of US wireless operators adopting uLocate's WHERE GPS widget platform.

Dan Gilmartin, VP of Marketing at uLocate, enthused the following:

" ... We are excited about the ability to reach AT&Ts 60+ million consumers. This launch extends the reach for applications created and built on the WHERE platform and brings the total potential audience for the platform to 130 million consumers. This launch represents a significant milestone for our company and our content partners as WHERE has the ability to offer content owners the broadest distribution network and largest potential audience of any location based application platform."

uLocate's two-pronged strategy is clearly yielding fruits -not only is it succeeding in establishing an ample base amongst US mobile subscribers-but is also stimulating rollout of new BREW/J2ME -based GPS widgets by the developer community on its proprietary WHERE platform by investing in its own Developer Program.

Look out for its BuddyBeacon service, which is bound to be revamped soon to offer new possibilities by being fully integrated within the WHERE platform.

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.