It’s debatable whether or not SXSW is still a good place to launch your new hot SoLoMo app, not least because you’ll likely get crowded out by all the other hopefuls, but that isn’t stopping Swarmly from giving it a shot. The app, which quietly debuted on iOS last September, focuses on mainly anonymous, aggregate location data to create something akin to Waze’s crowdsourced traffic data but for people. Today, an updated Swarmly lands on Android just in time to help SXSW attendees find where the action’s at.

Rather than simply enabling users to find what venues are nearby, as many check-in and local review apps do, Swarmly is much more about the here and now. Instead of checking-in, thus contributing to a database of historical location data, users toggle the ‘pollinate’ functionality so that their whereabouts begins contributing to any nearby ‘swarms’, which are tied to specific locations in Swarmly’s ever-expanding database. Those swarms then appear on a map, giving a quick real-time overview of which areas, events, bars, restaurants, and venues etc. are currently being populated.

“We were always frustrated that whenever it came to location there was always a million ways to find out what’s nearby, but nothing to tell you what’s good nearby, right now”, Swarmly co-founder Marco De Nichilo told me last year.

In addition, users can tag swarms to add more social data to locations, a simple form of curation. And in fact, the Android version of Swarmly introduces some gamification to encourage users to do so. “We’ve added a fun, simple scoring system for people to competitively tag swarms and gain points for reporting the buzz in their city to be the king or queen bee,” says De Nichilo.

The startup is also experimenting with making location-sharing even more real-time by enabling what it’s calling live sharing. Instead of only contributing to nearby swarms as users ‘jump’ location, they can share their location, semi-anonymously, live.

With this feature enabled, a user’s avatar moves across a map in real-time (aside from a small photo, no other explicitly identifiable information is displayed). The idea is to make it possible to follow friends as they move from one swarm to another. “Like a massive multi-player google latitude that highlights the currently popular places around you in real time as it happens”, explains De Nichilo.

However, as I noted when the iOS version of Swarmly debuted, the aggregate nature of the app’s utility requires that it achieve a boat load of network effects, something that the startup will be hoping SXSW can, at least temporarily, help with.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Editor’s note: Bill Lee is the CEO and co-founder of Twist, an investor in companies such as SpaceX, Tesla Motors, and Yammer, and board member of Big Fish Games. Follow him on his blog and on Twitter @westcoastbill.

As an early investor and founder with more than 15 years experience, I constantly field questions about the existence of an angel/Series A crunch. Rather than join this debate, I tell investors and founders that it’s more important to focus on the next big thing and think beyond current trends, even in a tough financing/startup environment.

I look for ideas that haven’t been able to come to fruition, or a market that’s been underserved. I’m drawn to concepts that are habitual and pervasive, but still lack an efficiency that could not have been solved or elegantly addressed until now. So that’s why I will be spending a lot of time this year thinking about, well, time – the one thing we all wish we had more of.

“When” Vs. “Where”: The Transition From Location To Time

Even now, we’re in the midst of a fundamental shift away from “where” technology to “when.” While companies like Foursquare pioneered the location-based industry, consumers will now seek the tools that not only tell them where someone is, but when they will arrive or how it will save them time. Things like Apple’s Find My Friends and Google Latitude do serve a purpose, but location is only part of the value. That crucial “when” is the missing element.

My infatuation with Uber reveals this. It’s nice knowing where your town car is, but seeing its ETA is so much more valuable. Similarly, I see so many opportunities for adding “when” to a slew of consumer apps and services next year and beyond. I imagine a day when I know that my yoga instructor (whom I found via Zaarly) has left and is going to arrive at my apartment. When I order from GrubHub or Seamless, I’ll know when that pastrami sandwich is going to show up at my door. Let’s face it — do you really care where your food is? Or, do you really just want to know when it’s going to arrive?

The implications of time will not just affect our personal lives. In the U.S. alone, businesses lose $90 billion annually due to people running late for corporate events and meetings. Just think of the time employees can save when they know that their co-workers are going to be late for meetings — let alone what they could be doing with those precious new-found hours of productivity.

The Most Precious Commodity

But think bigger. Companies like SolarCity can use time-based services to better serve their customers and manage their workforce. Consumers get happy not having to block out a four-hour window waiting for some technician to show up while managers make better efficiencies of inventory and workforce. Advances in mobile and geo-fencing technologies will soon make the “wait for the cable guy” a thing of the happy past.

As we enter 2013, entrepreneurs should be maniacal about targeting pain points that improve our lives. Time is perhaps our most precious commodity and those that make it a fundamental aspect of their business will win – and win big.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Google is launching a new feature today called Account Activity that will help users gain more insight into their usage of Google services. Available to those who opt in, the utility will offer monthly reports detailing your account activity, like your number of sign-ins, how many emails you sent and received, the browsers you used, the number of Google searches you performed, the number of places you visited on Google Latitude, and a ton of other things that showcase the vast amount of data Google stores on you.

The company says that it’s offering the feature, in part, to protect users from unauthorized activity. For example, in the company blog post, Google product manager Andreas Tuerk writes:

For example, if you notice sign-ins from countries where you haven’t been or devices you’ve never owned, you can change your password immediately and sign up for the extra level of security provided by 2-step verification.

While the report is something of a data nerds’ dream, its timely arrival hints at another purpose. The move follows Google’s decision to combine its privacy policies across all its services, starting at the beginning of this month, which resulted in treating users as “a single user across all our products,” as the company previously explained. That, of course, raised privacy concerns for some. The new Account Activity report offers a way for users to see exactly what they’re doing on Google, and how much of their life involves the use of Google’s products.

The new service is more like an extension to Google’s dashboard, then, which already gives users an overview of all their Google accounts and services in use – it just puts more data behind them.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Remember Highlight? That app that everyone thought was hot stuff back at SXSW? I used it for a few days and then deleted it, discovering quite quickly that the app, despite some utility, was an absolute battery hog. But what Highlight did was prove that, given the proper scenario, check-in works and is important. What frustrates me most, however, is that we keep doing it wrong.

Take this new app, Chkin.at, for example. It allows you to check-in at various websites and to become King of a certain page, thereby giving you certain conjugal rights with the ladies of your Kingdom (not really). Rather than dismiss it outright – it kind of works, but it spurred this little rant – I’ll note that it, like so many other apps, suffers from that fatal flaw: the check-in.

This is not a new complaint and it won’t be the last time someone grumbles about the current state of discovery-style apps. The main problem is always compliance, and it’s a problem familiar to doctors, dietitians, and researchers. Your app requires the user to offer up a bit of information. You can do it in a number of ways, the least efficient being the voluntary check-in (even with the promise of reward). Slightly more efficient is the “discussion” check-in used by devices like Autom, a diet robot that reminds you to log your food and feelings with friendly chit-chat and anthropomorphized features. Finally, there’s the invisible check-in à la Highlight, one of the better – if fatally flawed – instances of check-in I’ve seen in a while. Highlight was sort of a scavenger hunt for the ego (as are many check-in apps) which is why it got so much press. The folks who yodeled the most about it (TCers included) didn’t want to find other people, they were excited when other people found them.

Check-in becomes valuable when we don’t notice it. But invisible check-in requires deep hooks into the mobile device’s operating system. For example, FindMyFriends on the iPhone is just about perfect because it lets you find people without forcing them to Tweet that they’re behind a Denny’s smoking banana peels. The app, instead, knows where they are by using micro updates sent to a central server. Google already supplies similar functionality through Google Latitude and there is currently an API available.

This, in turn, sets privacy advocates on edge because, in a sense, the app is telling people where you are without your explicit knowledge (although not without your explicit permission.) You give up a freedom to gain a bit of functionality.

It seems the best apps are those that offer check-in after the fact. Yelp, for example, offers Foursquare-like check-ins but also just leaves you alone if you don’t want to use that service. More important, Yelp creates a valuable dialogue between the user and the service in that they don’t let you publish reviews right from the app or, presumably, right from the location. This, in turn, forces a more ruminative approach to restaurant reviews.

Most check-in apps get it wrong more than they get it right. If I have to do anything other than enter a room to use a location-based service, someone is doing something wrong. Here’s hoping someone really figures out the sweet spot between volunteering information and “streaming” it live before we all get so engrossed in checking, plusing, liking, and tagging that we forget to live our lives.

[Image: alpturk33/Shutterstock]

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

It looks like Google+ is adding a feature that will allow users to “check-in” via the Google+ mobile application in order to receive a time-sensitive deal or discount. This feature is mentioned in Google Places’s help documentation, but has not yet been made available to business owners using the Google Places service.

Google check-ins have a confusing history, it has to be said.

To be clear, the ability to check in via Google+ is not new.

Google’s location-based social service Google Latitude launched checkins in February, prior to the launch of Google+. And when Google+ arrived on mobile, it offered a check-in feature of its own, seemingly based on Latitude, which pulls up a list of nearby Google Places.

Google Latitude also allows you to sync your Latitude check-ins with Google+, as Google explains here. Other documentation refers to check-in offers for Latitude users (link), but again, nothing that specifically says these offers will show up for users checking in on Google+.

Whew!

Yeah, it’s kind of a big ol’ mess right now.

Google probably should have killed off Latitude when Google+ launched to avoid this kind of confusion. Maybe it still will. After all, now you can checkin on Google+ and there are so many other places to find Google’s Offers, including the Google Shopper application (iOS/Android), the Google Offers application for Android, and the Google Offers website.

And soon, apparently, Google+.

The new help documentation was spotted by Mike Blumental, who also notes that Google has recently started cracking down on businesses whose offers don’t include a real discount of some sort. Business owners are receiving emails explaining that offers should provide “a monetary discount or an additional good or service that is not normally included.” (That’s per the Offers Guidelines here.)

As for the forthcoming Google+ check-in offers, here’s the Help Documentation that explains how Google+ users can receive the deal or discount. It reads (emphasis mine):

If your customers have to visit your locations in order to do business with you, you can request that they check-in on Google+ in order to redeem your offers. They can choose to share the check-in publicly or with some of their circles, which helps spread the word about your business on Google+. They can also choose to keep their check-in private and still redeem an offer.

Again, this is not a “Google Places” check-in offer or a “Google Latitude” check-in offer being discussed here, it’s a “Google+” check-in offer.

So is this new? It appears so, because the option for a business owner to actually include the Google+ check-in offer hasn’t yet gone live within the Offers tab of Google Places, which is here such things are maintained. This is what it looks like now (see below):

This all seems to imply that Google+ is going to soon encourage more check-ins through the integration of check-in deals and discounts, similar to Foursquare. It’s an obvious next move, of course, but it’s good to see it all confirmed in black & white…help documentation.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Social discovery service Banjo, which launched its cross-platform mobile application for iPhone and Android earlier this summer, has just introduced a new way to keep track of where your friends are and what they’re doing: automatic friend alerts. Unlike the alerts you see on Foursquare, which ping you every time a friend checks in somewhere, this friend alerting feature works across social networks. And more importantly, it only bothers you when your friends are actually nearby.

You know what’s annoying? Foursquare telling me that my friend downtown just checked into Starbucks while I’m sitting here at my desk trying to get some work done. I just don’t care. But I do care to know where my friends are when I’m out and about, too. Maybe I’m the one checking into a Starbucks when my friend is doing a little back-to-school shopping just a few shops down. (OK, yes, I’m boring. Feel free to insert “bar,” “nightclub” or “restaurant” here if you have a more exciting life.) But how would I know that my friends are nearby? Until now, I probably wouldn’t have.

Keeping track of your friends’ activity has typically been more of a manual effort – a somewhat stalker-like activity. You have to launch Google Latitude or Apple’s new “Find My Friends” app. You have to constantly keep an eye on your Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare streams for updates. What’s more useful is a service that simply tells you when your friend is just a block away (or 5 miles away – in Banjo, the choice is up to you).

That’s what Banjo is doing now, and it’s awesome. The service, which connects to your Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Gowalla accounts, simply sends you a push notification (on either iOS and Android) when a friend is within the radius you specified. And when you don’t want to be bothered, you can turn off the alerts entirely or put them on pause with just a tap. You can even turn off alerts for individual friends. Simple, but incredibly useful.

(Note that the ability to specify the radius for alerts is rolling out in a few days. The friend alerts themselves are live now, however). 

Banjo, which just announced it has now reached 300,000 users, also finds nearby people through geo-tagged updates posted to TwitPic and Instagram. As of yet, those networks are only used for discovery purposes, not to provide alerts.

The app is available for download here on iTunes or here on the Android Market.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Location-based service Loopt has been allowed its first patent, and it could be a big one.

The patent, as described, seems relevant to numerous existing products, including Google’s Latitude. In layman’s terms, it describes using your location to display relevant ads and offers on top of a map, as an interstitial, or as a text ad — another claim also discusses displaying where your friends are on the same map. The patent was first filed in 2007, with Loopt founder Sam Altman listed as the primary inventor (Loopt got its start long before the likes of Foursquare and Google Latitude).

The patent, which is listed as Application Number 11/931,113 by the US Patent and Trademark Office, still hasn’t technically been granted. But it has been “allowed,” which is a precursor to being granted. At this point, it could still be a few months before the patent is granted, assuming that Loopt pays all the proper fees and files the proper paperwork.

Here’s one relevant claim:

“17. A method comprising: providing, by a server, an advertising campaign including a plurality of advertising messages for transmitting to users of mobile devices at different times or locations; receiving, by the server, the geographic location of a mobile communication device operated by a user within an area; and transmitting to the mobile communication device for display, at least one of the plurality of advertising messages, wherein the advertising message includes content relevant to a characteristic of the user or activity performed by the user and is in the form of a text advertising message, coupon and/or graphic element that is superimposed over a map representation of the area around the mobile communication device displayed on a graphical user interface of the mobile communication device of the user, displayed in an interstitial display page of the graphic user interface, or displayed as a text-based message, and wherein the ad message is transmitted in response to the location of the user.”

It’s unclear what this means for Loopt (the company isn’t commenting). Loopt has sworn to the Patent Pledge, which states that they won’t offensively use their patents against any company with fewer than 25 people. Of course, most of the location-based companies you’ve heard of have more than that. Even if they never use it offensively (which would be nice), this may be a good defensive patent for Loopt going forward.

Part of me feels like the notion of putting a layer of ads on top of a map, alongside where your friends are, is an obvious use-case for smartphones. This was filed in 2007, so the assumption may be that it was less obvious back then.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Today during her keynote talk at Social Loco, Google VP of Location and Local Services Marissa Mayer outlined some of the core goals driving Google’s local and location strategies, and how social will tie into that. The gist: Google wants to create serendipitous experiences, and to present you with contextually relevant information before you even search for it. But there are still plenty of questions — and we got a chance to ask her about some of them.

Soon after her talk, we sat down with Mayer for a ten-minute interview, where we discussed a range of topics including the scalability of Google Business Photos, the problems facing Google Latitude, and how Google Places is going to differentiate itself from Yelp in the future.

Some interesting points from the video:

• Google Business Photos, which were just announced today, are essentially ‘Street View’ for business interiors. At this point Google is only using professional photographs, but Mayer hinted (though wouldn’t confirm) that users would eventually be able to submit photos themselves.
• Mayer says that Google Hotpot, with its personalized recommendations, was one of the first features used to differentiate Places from Yelp. There will be much more along these lines.
• When I asked how Google would incentivize users to rate venues, Mayer said that it’s easy to distribute the reviews you leave (you can Tweet them, etc.). And your reviews show up in friends’ search results on Google. “We’re also working to make the check-in and ratings experiences even more seamless on the phone”, Mayer says. Off-camera Mayer also pointed out that the majority of content submitted on other services are left by a small percentage of users, so it’s okay if not everyone is leaving reviews.
• Latitude has over 10 million users, but Mayer concedes that its engagement isn’t very high. Google is working on ways to fix this (deals and offers, linked to check-ins).

Mayer also explained how Google’s location strategy is supported by two pillars: Places and Maps. Instead of launching numerous new location-focused products, it sounds like Google will keep integrating them into these two apps.

We also get to the bottom of the infamous Hotpot name. Tune in for all of the details.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Today brings two different news items from two huge companies both related to the same thing: check-ins. This morning, All Facebook found an area of Facebook’s site pointing to the ability to check-in to events. And just now, Google has pushed an update to their Latitude iPhone app to allow users to check-in for the first time also. Is a new check-in war brewing?

Well, yes and no.

Neither of these updates today by themselves are huge — just yet. Facebook has had the ability to check-in via their Places service for several months now (though the feature is still rolling out worldwide). Google, meanwhile, added check-ins to Latitude on Android this past February (and noted that it would be coming for the iPhone too). But both of the subtle updates today point to big things.

First of all, Facebook has confirmed to us that the ability to check-in to events is coming shortly to their massively popular iPhone app. For the time being, it will be iPhone and touch.facebook.com-only, though you can assume that Android will gain the feature down the road as well. This has the potential to be a great feature because Facebook Events are so widely used. And letting your friends know you’re actually at a party you RSVP’d for adds an important location layer to the experience.

It also opens the door to other cool possibilities for events. What if only people checked-in to the event could message each other? Or what if only they could share pictures to the event’s Wall? What if an event wanted to give away prizes via Facebook to those actually there? There are a lot of possibilities.

Meanwhile, checking in on Latitude on the iPhone brings the ability to the platform that first made the functionality popular (via Foursquare on the iPhone). Latitude has been around for several years and has a few million users, but they have mainly been passive users, just sharing their location in the background. The check-in allows them to be active, and get rewards and deals associated with that.

This is a big part of Google’s plan in the local space — yes, a plan that puts them right up against Facebook, Foursquare, Groupon, and others. And whether Google likes it or not, the iPhone is an important part of this plan. And with this update, people may actually start using the service on the iPhone now.

In the Latitude check-ins for iPhone announcement, Google also snuck in the news that Google Places is now in 30 languages. Again, all a part of the big push into local and deals.

Just like Facebook. And Foursquare. The war is on.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Back in February, we noted a sort of creepy feature of Google Latitude that was annoying some users: Location Alerts. The beta feature actually launched alongside the Location History feature the previous November, but it didn’t get a lot of attention at the time. Then people started getting emails notifying them where their friends were — without asking for such emails. Yeah, a little creepy. So it shouldn’t be too surprising to hear that Google has quietly killed the feature.

The only place Google noted this is on this page on their support site. As they write:

The experimental Location Alerts (beta) app was retired in December, 2010. Retiring features is always a tough decision, but part of building experimental features is picking the best ones on which to focus. Rest assured, we’re continuing to develop apps such as Location History as well as the Latitude API to enable the developer community to create even more ways for you to use Latitude.

While it may have sounded like a good idea on paper, the execution of the feature was bizarre. You would get emails notifying you where your friends were if they opted to use the feature. That lead to users getting weird emails like this:

Subject: Location Alert: Peter XXXX was nearby!

Google Location Alert

Peter XXXXX (XXXXXX@gmail.com) was within 800 meters of you in San Francisco, CA at 7:15 PM. Check Google Latitude to see where Peter is now.

It’s not quite: “Peter is looking in your window RIGHT NOW”, but it’s not that far off either. There was a way to stop getting these alerts, but it was a really weird feature to make opt-out.

It was also a bit weird because they would only send the alerts when your friend was somewhere they’re not normally at. There are at least a dozen scenarios where that could be troublesome.

Google recently released a Latitude iPhone app, and says the service now has 9 million active users — which we find a little suspect, but the service is deeply integrated into Android.

[thanks Dan]

Article courtesy of TechCrunch