We’re doing some research on SMS and location and wanted to ask you, our loyal readers (yes, we do have a few) if you use SMS to check-in and how frequently you use it. We’ll follow up soon with a post once our research is complete.

In one of our favorite Valentine’s Day posts of all time, Chris Dixon posted about the “geo stack” – a model for how to think about the various layers of the geolocation ecosystem.  According to Chris, the stack looks something like this: lat long detection > lat long translation (into venues, addresses, etc.) > user [...]

The announcement yesterday of Google Buzz all but guarantees that Google has given up on its poorly thought out location experiment, Google Latitude. We’ve held off dropping Latitude into the deadpool in the hopes that Google would innovate around it and make it much more appealing. Turns outs, they decided to go down another path – instead [...]

As millions of iPhone/iPod Touch and soon to be iPad users know, Apple’s SDK’s biggest drawback is single-tasking (i.e. no background processes). As the dominant mobile platform (we don’t want to debate “best” or “most used” – Apple’s SDK is the first mobile platform almost all developers develop their apps for first, so it is [...]

Unless you’ve been on Neptune the last few weeks (you’ll need to show us your check-ins to prove it), you’re almost assuredly aware of the iPad, Apple’s supersized iPod Touch. Assuming that Apple will sell millions of these things (regardless of whether people need them or not), and other companies also release portable, multi-touch tablets [...]

Collective buying is not really a new idea.  At its simplest level, collective buying entails individual consumers banding together in order to get bulk or group discounts.  If you buy 1 taco, it’s $3.50, but if you buy 100 tacos, it’s $175. Tragically, not many individuals can commit to buying 100 tacos at the same [...]

The last 24 hours has greatly solidified a movement and community that has been gaining steam for the last year or so – crisis mapping. Crisis or disaster mapping is a range of services/applications that are designed to help gather and spread information for and between first responders, NGOs, domestic and international governments and relief [...]

Friending and friend discovery are core concepts (maybe the core concepts) of social media. There are really three main friending choices for social media sites: follow only (i.e. RSS); friend request approval (i.e. Facebook); or anyone can follow anyone, no reciprocal follow required (Twitter model). As social location services evolve, how friending takes place (and is handled [...]

This just in from the Google Mobile Blog – they have turned on a “Near Me Now” link if you visit google.com with your Android or iPhone browser.  Clicking the “Near Me Now” link displays a menu of business types: Restaurants, Coffee Shops, Bars, ATMs, etc.  Clicking on one of the categories then shows you [...]

Don’t let the flood of press about Gowalla and Foursquare fool you – it’s still very early days when it comes to location based check-in applications. Here are a couple of data points: – The current world record for check-ins at a single venue is 242 – a Boxee meetup in Foursquare’s home town, New [...]