Location Awareness – BBC Radio Lincolnshire

March 28, 2009 · Filed Under Cars, Tech, Web, blog, hull digital

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

Last Monday I had another Radio session over at BBC Radio Lincolnshire on their tech slot. It’s starting to become a regular thing which is great, so a HUGE thanks to them for having me on!

This week we were talking about location awareness and how it is becoming more and more prevalent. Listen to the chat below!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Personally, I’m a massive fan of this technology and looking forward to when it matures. At present there are a few competing services, such as

Yahoo!’s fire eagle

picture-25

Brightkite

picture-31

And also Google’s Latitude

picture-24

If Google bring out an iPhone application for Latitude, it will undoubtedly take off in a big way. At the moment it is limited to using it via the web on your computer or on some phones:

Google Latitude is a feature of Google Maps for mobile on these phones:

Android-powered devices, such as the T-Mobile G1

iPhone and iPod touch devices (coming soon)

most color BlackBerry devices

most Windows Mobile 5.0+ devices

most Symbian S60 devices (Nokia smartphones)

Personally, I’m using Brightkite every now and then and used to tinker with fire eagle, but not at the moment. Is anyone using these services regularly and what for? Having spoken with @nofont, he had some great ideas about situation awareness which I talk about on the radio clip – your phone knowing whether you are at home, or out and about, in front of the computer, or in the car. This could start to be VERY useful.

What also really intrigues me is the marketing aspect of this technology. The next level of permission marketing will be location orientated – so services, brands and companies can alert you to things that might interest you. Yes, nig brother really is here. We just need to make sure he has permission to be.

Share and Enjoy: