Friend-finding cell phone service Loopt is now available on some Verizon Wireless phones.
(Credit:
Loopt)
Loopt is a service that uses GPS (Global Positioning System) chips in phones to pinpoint a subscriber's location; then users can broadcast that location information to friends or family, who can track them on a tiny map. Subscribers can sign up for alerts to find out when other Loopt friends are near. They're also able to tag photos and send them to friends with location information attached.
The company has been offering the service on some Sprint and Boost Mobile phones for more than a year. The service on Sprint costs $2.99 a month.
Starting in April, Verizon will offer the Loopt service for $3.99 a month. Verizon is offering the service on 20 popular data-enabled phones including the Chocolate by LG, the MotoRizr Z6tv, and the G'zOne Type-S. Customers will be able to get the application through Verizon's Get It Now virtual store.
Location-based services are expected to generate a lot of money for carriers in the future. Already, most major mobile operators are offering some kind of location-based service, such as GPS-enabled navigation or tracking. Helio, a mobile virtual-network operator, offers a tracking service that's similar to the one offered by Loopt. Other carriers, such as Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and Alltel, offer tracking services for parents who want to keep tabs on their kids.
But location services are also expected to be a big component of mobile social networking. In February, Yahoo announced that people could sign up for "proximity alerts" on its OneConnect service to let them know when friends using the service come within a certain distance of one another. And Loopt has been working with Facebook and MySpace.com to integrate its technology into those mobile Web sites.
So far, friend-finding services have had modest success. There are a couple of reasons for this. For one, the service needs to be offered on more phones and on more carrier networks. SMS (Short Message Service) text messaging was a novelty when people could only send messages to people who subscribed to the same carrier. But once they were able to text people on other carrier networks, the service exploded. The same could be true for friend-finding. The deal between Loopt and Verizon, the second-largest operator in the U.S., is a step in that direction. Loopt customers on Sprint's network will be able to track and be tracked by friends on Verizon's network and vice versa.
That said, Loopt and other friend-finding services still must overcome privacy concerns. A lot of people simply aren't comfortable with the idea of their location being broadcast to others.
Loopt says it has the privacy issues licked. Only people who have given permission to have their location broadcast will be tracked. And these users only share location information with their known friends via a private network. The company also says that the location-sharing feature can be turned on and off at any time on a friend-by-friend basis or for all friends.
In a separate announcement from Verizon Wireless, the company said Friday that it has integrated MySpace into its menu on the Mobile Web 2.0 home screen.
This will allow subscribers to click directly into the MySpace Mobile Web site from the menu, eliminating the need for customers to type in a URL in order to access the site. Verizon subscribers will also be able to edit MySpace profiles, view and add friends, post comments and blogs, and send and receive MySpace messages from their mobile phones.
Loopt, which offers a mobile friend-finding service, has extended the reach of its application with a new feature that allows users to notify not just other Loopt users, but any friend, of their whereabouts via text or IM.
Starting Thursday, the Loopt service is integrated with subscribers' mobile address books and AIM buddy lists so they can share their real-time location via a text message or instant message.
(Credit:
Loopt)
The way it works is that when Loopt users text or IM their friends they can choose to have their location automatically attached. So a message that says, "Want to meet for a drink?" will also include a message that says "@ 28th Street and Park Avenue." Then it will link to a map that shows the exact location.
Loopt's service, which costs $2.99 a month, is available on some Sprint Nextel and Boost Mobile handsets. The service uses GPS chips in phones to pinpoint a subscriber's location; then users can broadcast that location information to friends or family, who can track them on a tiny map. Subscribers can also sign up for alerts to find out when other Loopt friends are near. They're also able to tag photos and send them to friends with location information attached.
Location-based services are expected to generate lots of money for carriers in the future. Already, most major mobile operators are offering some kind of location-based service, such as GPS-enabled navigation or tracking. Helio, a mobile virtual-network operator, also offers a tracking service that's similar to the one offered by Loopt. Other carriers, such as Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and now Alltel, offer tracking services for parents who want to keep tabs on their kids.
Now Loopt has taken the tracking service one step further by directly integrating into the mobile address book and IM buddy list. Previously, the Loopt friend-finding service only worked with other Loopt users, which inherently limited the usability of the service.
Even with the new IM and text feature, the Loopt service is still limited in scope. For the application to truly hit the mainstream, it will have to be offered by more carriers.
Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of Loopt, says more deals are on the way. The company is already in talks with another major mobile operator in the U.S., and it should announce another deal soon. But Loopt isn't just talking to carriers. The company is also working with Google and Facebook to add new features and functionality to its service. So stay tuned.
Sprint Nextel said Tuesday it will use Loopt's "friend finding" technology to let subscribers track their friends.
Loopt, which also offers its location-based service on Boost Mobile, a subsidiary of Sprint, uses Global Positioning System chips in phones to allow subscribers to see where their friends are located.
To address privacy concerns, Loopt subscribers must give other Loopt users permission to track them. Subscribers also can hide from anyone in their "buddy" list at any time.
Loopt has been available on Boost Mobile since last year. And earlier this year the company said it had signed up 100,000 users. Sam Altman, the company's CEO, wouldn't give any updated information about subscribers. The deal with Sprint is the first in which a major carrier has announced it will use the service. Altman said Loopt will offer the service on other carrier networks later this year.
Location-based services are becoming popular. Most major mobile operators already offer a GPS-enabled navigation service that allows people to get real-time driving directions. Sprint uses a mobile-navigation application from TeleNav. The company bundled the TeleNav service for free with data packages that cost more than $20 per month.
Helio, a mobile virtual network operator, also offers a tracking service that is similar to the one offered by Loopt. Other providers, such as Disney Mobile and Verizon Wireless, offer tracking services for parents who want to keep tabs on their kids. Sprint also offers a kid-tracking service.
Location services also can be used to enhance other applications, like search and weather updates. And mobile operators see great revenue potential for leveraging the technology, which originally was put into phones to comply with a Federal Communications Commission requirement to provide enhanced 911 services that automatically provide the location of people who have called 911.
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