ABI RESEARCH: 82 MILLION MOBILE LOCATION BASED SOCIAL NETWORKING SUBSCRIPTIONS BY 2013

ABI Research predicts that there will be over 82 million mobile location-based social networking subscriptions by 2013. According to ABI Research, licensing agreements with carriers and handsets manufacturers will be a crucial success factor for location-enabled social networking. Ad-based models are expected to prevail in the long run. The emergence of location-enabled instant messaging with applications such as Palringo Local and Nokia Chat are also enriching mobile communication with location context. "While growth will be mainly driven by the availability of multimedia-centric GPS handsets, other mobile form factors will also become important," said ABI Research director Dominique Bonte. "Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) with built-in GPS receivers have been announced, with location-based social networking site GyPSii supporting Moblin-based Intel Atom processor-powered MIDs. Connected PNDs and outdoor GPS solutions are other obvious candidates for location-based networking. Nissan Carwings' in-car telematics solution allows the sharing and ranking of fuel consumption in Japan." -Smarajit Dasgupta

A WALK DOWN THE ANDROID MARKET

With the launch of the first Android-powered phone T-Mobile G1 and the opening of the Android Market, a number of online applications for the Android platform have gone live. Google and the Open Handset Alliance have also made the Android platform source code open to developers letting them build applications and services for Android-powered devices. The Android Market lets users download, rate, and comment on applications. These user ratings coupled with usage statistics will determine how the applications are ranked. Developers need to register with a US$ 25 fee and go through an authentication process before being able to put up their applications on the marketplace. The initial applications will be the free, but from first quarter 2009 developers will be able to distribute paid applications. Developers will be able to take home 70% of the revenue generated from the paid-for applications, while the rest of the revenue share will go to the carriers and billing settlement fees (Google will not keep a share for itself).

Applications available already fall into six categories: Contacts / Events; Environment; Information Services; Location Based; Shopping; and Social Networking.

Application, Developer, URL	Description
Contacts / events
e-ventr, Michael Zitzelsberger, www.e-ventr.com	A personal event organizer and friendship scout that allows one to arrange meetings, organize activities, and accept invitations.
iSkoot For Skype, iSkoot Inc., www.iskoot.com	It lets users access their Skype contacts, make and receive Skype calls, chat, and place SkypeOut calls from their mobile phone. Currently available in the US only, iSkoot does not require a WiFi connection or 3G networks.
Maverick, Multiple Facets Inc., www.multiplefacets.com	Maverick is a Google Talk compatible instant messenger that integrates photos, scribbles, audio clips, location, and graphical emotions into the experience. It also enables users to receive Gmail notifications.
Environment
Ecorio, Jeff Kao, Robert Lam, Gary Pong, Taneem Talukdar, Jason Wong, www.ecorio.org	Ecorio tracks one’s “mobile carbon footprint” and encourages one to reduce and offset it. It runs in the background of one’s phone and tracks when one is moving by car or public transport and adds up the trips and calculates carbon output for each trip. It also draws from Google Transit to suggest transit routes one could take for the trips. One can purchase equivalent offset amounts based on their carbon footprint and these are used to fund greenhouse gas reduction projects.
Information services
BreadCrumbz, Amos Yoffe, www.bcrumbz.com	A picture-based navigation application for mobile phones that lets one navigate using pictures as well as a map. One can create their own picture routes and share them.
WikiMobile Encyclopedia, Bonfire Media Inc, www.bonfiremedia.com	Provides access to all 2 million Wikipedia articles, including pictures and quick facts. Users can bookmark their favorites for easy tracking.
Wikitude , Philipp Breuss, www.mobilizy.com	A mobile global travel guide based on location-based Wikipedia content. It helps in planning a trip or to find out about landmarks in one’s surroundings. It offers searching of 350,000 world-wide points of interest by GPS or by address and have results displayed in a list view, map view, or camera view.
Location based
cab4me light, Skycoders , www.cab4me.com	Lets one select the pickup location on a map or from their contacts to get a cab. cab4me light then provides a list of cab companies serving the area along with contact information.
iMap Weather, Weathertop Consulting LLC and Weather Decision Technologies Inc, www.wdtinc.com	Offers graphically enriched "street level" weather information including high-quality radar images, lightning strike information, current weather conditions, weather forecasts, and active severe weather watches and warnings notifications. Users can explore local weather conditions interactively, create pinpoint forecasts, and zoom in and out of radar weather data for current or chosen locations.
iSafe, Navee Technologies, www.freefamilywatch.com	iSafe offers safety guides with voice alerts on high-crime neighborhoods, severe weather, allergies, air quality, and speed limit monitoring.
LifeAware, LifeAware LLC, www.lifeaware.net	LifeAware lets one use their phone or the LifeAware website to locate friends and family. Users can setup zones to trigger alerts when friends or family enter or leave the area. They can also tag locations with descriptions and images and share them. Users can specify whether to use GPS, network, or both.
Locale, Clare Bayley, Carter Jernigan, Jasper Lin, Jennifer Shu, Christina Wright, www.androidlocale.com	Locale is a location-aware settings manager that automatically changes one’s phone's settings based on conditions, such as location. One can create Situations, which specify conditions under which one’s settings should change. Examples of true/false-based condition questions are "Am I at home?" or "Is my battery below 20%?" and corresponding settings can be "turn on call forwarding to my landline" and "turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth" respectively. One can also use it to automatically turn their phone into silent / vibrator mode when they near their office by specifying distance and location.
Marvin, Laurent Pontier, www.marvinreloaded.com	Marvin lets users publish and browse user generated content by location, type, services, keyword, or all combined. It provides access to a collection of location based services such as buddy and family Finder (MyLocation), job search (MyJob), real estate locator (MyHouse), cars locator (MyCar), geo-blogging (MyLog), and friends seeker (MyHeart).
Shopping
Compare Everywhere, Jeffrey Sharkey, www.compare-everywhere.com	A shopping assistant that allows users to scan a barcode and instantly search online and local stores to find out if the offered sale price is a good deal. The application also offers reviews and allows keeping track of shopping lists and wish lists and sharing them with friends. Users can connect with stores using driving directions or phone.
ShopSavvy, Big in Japan, www.biggu.com	ShopSavvy is a comparison-shopping application that lets one use the mobile phone camera to scan the barcode of any product to find the best prices online and through the inventories of local stores using GPS.
Social networking
MySpace Mobile, Myspace.com, www.myspace.com	MySpace Mobile for Android lets one stay connected with friends on their MySpace network, share photos, view their inbox, comments, bulletins, etc. Users can also add photos from their phone camera, send messages, and post blog updates.
Wertago, Wertago team, www.wertago.com	Wertago is an application designed for nightlifers that lets users share their experience and rate and tag venues, upload and comment on pictures, and connect with other socialites.

-Smarajit Dasgupta

MASSIVE US GET OUT THE VOTE (GOTV) EFFORT DEPLOYS THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY IN NEW AND INNOVATIVE FASHION

Technology has been embraced by many in this US presidential election, and it is being put to through rigorous on the job testing. One example is a service called Twitter Vote Report (TVR), which has been launched as a US "election protection" effort. Voters are encouraged to send reports of election conditions as they are experienced, letting others know that voting is going well or not, the length of any delays, or that a serious problem exists which requires election protection.

Reports can be submited in four ways:

1: Via Twitter: sending #votereport will call a "tweet" to the TVR's attention. TVR supports these codes:

- #[zip code] to indicate the zip code where you’re voting; ex., “#12345″
- L:[address or city] to drill down to your exact location; ex. “L:1600 Pennsylvania Avenue DC”
- #machine for machine problems; ex., “#machine broken, using prov. ballot”
- #reg for registration troubles; ex., “#reg I wasn’t on the rolls”
- #wait:[minutes] for long lines; ex., “#wait:120 and I’m coming back later”
- #early if you’re voting before November 4th
- #good or #bad to give a quick sense of your overall experience
- #EP[your state] if you have a serious problem and need help from the Election Protection coalition; ex., #EPOH

2. Via SMS, sent to 66937 (Mozes), starting the message with #votereport.

3. Via Phone: (567) 258-VOTE from a touchtone phone.

4. Via iPhone application Vote Report: the application prompts users for input, including an optional voice message.

TVR is itself an all volunteer effort supported by individuals, non-profit and for-profit organizations, including:

- Campus Progress Action;
- Common Cause;
- CREDO Mobile;
- Current;
- Demos;
- Election Protection;
- Independence Voter Foundation (iYear);
- League of Young Voters;;
- Mobilize.org;;
- Mozes;;
- NetworkRedux;
- Not an Alternative;
- NPR Community;
- Ohio Telecom Association (OTA);
- pbwiki;
- Plodt;
- Rock the Vote;
- Stop Political Phone Calls;
- Student PIRG's New Voters Project;
- TechPresident;
- Twittervission;
- Video the Vote;
- Voter Supression Wiki;
- Why Tuesday;
- Women Donors Network (WDN);
- Women's Voices Women Vote (WVWV);
- Zerion Consulting;
- Zetetic.

We tested this service, as we have tested other election-related services. Mashups such as TVR require that components provided by multiple organizations work together. TVR is a sophisticated application--or multiple applications if one considers each of the four methods by which users can submit information--and we found that some of the methods worked better than others. We tested the service by trying to send a message through each of the four methods, and found success with only one out of the four:

1. Twitter: our messages never seemed to arrive.
2. SMS: messages arrived without a problem.
3. Phone: we were immediately and automatically disconnected each time we dialed.
4. iPhone: the application hung each time we tried to send.

It is possible that the first method failed because of user error, though we don't think this is the case. We are confident that the third and fourth methods failed for reasons other than user error.

TVR reports are also supposed to be displayed on a Google map mashup, seen below. Some data appears, though it doesn't seem as though all the data is coming through or that the data is being refreshed.

Our conclusion is that this TVR service is a bit buggy and, if not for the press of time, wouldn't or shouldn't be rolled out just yet. While TVR and other election protection services are in greatest demand on election day itself, some estimate that as many as 25% of the voters have already voted and that as many as 33% will have voted before Tuesday. Fortunately, early voting means that there will be less pressure at the polls on Tuesday. However, it would be helpful to have services such as TVR available during the entire voting period, not just election day.

There is some optimism that the margins in this election will be so great that a few polling snafus here and there won't really affect the result and that there will be little need for election protection.



-Stuart Whitaker