LBS applications for the masses
twitxr pronounced “twicher” is an awesome 2.0 application, you post a microblog to it and then it posts to twitxr and if enabled under your profile settings also twitter, facebook and flickr!
But the killer critter in twitxr is the location based services potential, twitxr have by the looks of it done a deal with Google to obtain the cell-id information to provide fairly accurate LBS information on phones without GPS. Thus their first native phone application on the market is the iPhone, but with 70% market share of the Smartphone market they have decided to support Sybian Smartphone’s S60 platform and android next by the looks of it.
This unlocks the door for all developers to write LBS application by leveraging Google’s Mobile Maps application, those that have GPS phones and use this application on their mobile are helping Google and it’s partners liek Twitxr. Mobile companies do not publish their databases of cell mast ids/locations and they change the mast id’s apparently… However when people use the Google Mobile Maps application, I “suspect” they are also help Google’s database be up to date. Initially in each country, people in cars with a GPS/GSM enabled laptops will have been sent out to make the first database, recording the cell-id, mobile network and GPS location.
Who are FON, the parent company behind twitxr?
“FON has raised more than €30M in financing from among others Skype, Google, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital and BT. These leading Internet and communications companies have shown the industry’s support for FON’s vision and business model.” Martin Varsavsky
Why twitxr this so important?
Well I can only speak for myself, but I’ve been wanting to develop LBS applications for about 3 years, but I just couldn’t see a way of doing it.
GPS continuously on, on mobiles seems to really drain the batteries, telling twitxr where you are when you post, or letting your phone tell twitxr where you are by your cell-id is a lot more practical where power is concerned. And also the major problem with GPS is the time needed to get a fix, with cell-id, the phone just has to push the details of the towers and IDs to the SaaS application.
$64 million dollar question
Can twitxr create enough presence to expand it’s mother ship Fon to greatly expand it’s user base for global wifi domination? (Fon now has 80% of Tokyo covered as of February 2008) If they provide good coverage, then it will be practical to make and receive a VOIP call using wifi/wimax and also make using your laptop out and about an easier & cheaper past time.
The problem with 3G data is that is still expensive. Fon is cheap but QOS lower, but for John Doe – do you really need the QOS offered by 3G data at the prices being offered? I suspect not.
Won’t the ISPs get upset about FON usage?
I don’t believe so, UK ISP’s are now all introducing capping levels on a monthly basis, so UK broadband is going “pay as you go”. A base price, including X gigabytes of download and Y pence per gig if you go over your package level.
Initially BT wholesale offered UK ISP “as much as the user can eat” contracts, but this is now no longer the case. (But I still have one through my ISP and will loose it when I move house…)
So what about the future of mobile networks?
I think they have to race ahead and endorse OpenID like French Telecom, so that they can make mobiles the Digital Wallets of the future or a Ripple server on your phone! Mobile phone technology is mature and it’s very easy to implement biometric security, OKI have patents on using a camera in a mobile phone to scan your iris which looks promising:
“The software does require a mobile with a camera ability of at least 1-megapixel, and takes around 0.5s to authenticate an iris, but Oki claims faster checks would be possible with a beefier CPU.”
“The software is compatible with Windows Mobile 2003, XP and Symbian operating systems, the latter of which is commonplace on Nokia handsets including the N70. However, Oki claims it that future compatibility with Linux and Brew may be possible.”
Iris scans can normally detect stress or duress, but a 1-megapixel camera phone is probably pushing the boundaries at this stage!
Wifi LBS enablers:
http://www.skyhookwireless.com/
http://www.herecast.com/
http://www.spotigo.com/
It’s all connected…
2008-06
Update, when I wrote piece I hadn’t heard of Fire Eagle from Yahoo! to Google, click here
Tags: m-commerce, OpenID, wifi, wimax
