Digital Media Buzz > Pinpointing the Future of Geo APIs

Pinpointing the Future of Geo APIs

By Ron Callari

Geolocation APIs are flourishing and third-party API developers are multiplying faster than bunnies on a hot spring day. Twitter’s acquisition of Mixers Labs and GeoAPI have a lot to do with this exponential activity, but other APIs and location-based-services have been flourishing on their own paths as well.

Facebook is sitting back examining the digital landscape before making a move. Couple this with the heated smartphone explosion in the last 12 months, and you have a perfect digital storm brewing on the horizon. 2010 may be the Chinese Year of the Tiger, but it’s also the Year of the API.

It’s no longer good enough to know “what’s happening” a la Twitter circa 2006-2009 - now according to CEO Evan Williams, it’s more important to know “where it’s happening.” Noted in his “Mixing It Up at 795 Folsom St ” blog, 2010 will be the year that “the Twitter API integrates its platform with new and existing apps the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla.”

What geolocation brings to the table that has somewhat stalled the traditional social networks of Twitter and Facebook is a quicker means to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. With smartphones came cameras and GPS systems allowing for an easy and direct conduit to local advertising for shops, restaurants, bars, tourist attractions and a multitude of other businesses. In turn, APIs that open their platforms to the public can grow their reach and the diversity of that reach with newer monetization models.

So while some call geolocation one step closer to ‘improved stalking,’ others believe that there will be a paradigm shift and a more relaxed definition as to what privacy means to us in the year 2010.

Let’s take a look at today’s most shiny thing as seen through the eyes of third-party developers, CEOs and other thought-leaders in the soon-to-be-very-crowded location-based space.

Andrei Taraschuk, Founder | UMapper
The big idea behind UMapper is enabling its customers to manage the entire map life cycle from creation to monetization. With UMapper you can create, distribute, track and monetize maps. In addition, UMapper is map-agnostic framework - meaning it works with different map data providers including Bing, Google, Yahoo and OpenStreetMap.

In questioning Taraschuk as to how UMapper works with Twitter’s GeoAPI, he notes, “We used the Twitter search API with a geographic filter, which can search tweets in a specific location / radius.” Basically a simple platform to work with, “The GeoAPI implements Twitter’s search methods making it very easy for integration with Flash we used Tweetr ActionScript library.”

Users can create UMapper/Twitter maps that in turn can be embedded on their websites or Facebook pages. Others have used them to enhance blogs and news articles. “For example, if you are writing an article about a flood, you can create a Twitter map that shows people tweeting about flood in the area,” Taraschuk says.

Paul Hallett, CEO | Schmap
Hallett makes an interesting observation regarding what he calls the “geoparsing” of content shared on social networks. He points to the example of the wealth of local information that is shared in the body of tweets. “People tweet about great restaurant experiences, bands tweet about gigs, bars are tweeting about happy hours and so on,” he says.

The challenge for the app developer then comes down to filtering and deciphering. If someone tweets “Cool bash tonight at Joe’s,” has that person just returned from a private party at a friend’s house, or is there some kind of event coming up at Joe’s Bar? What is the event? Where is Joe’s Bar, and who might this information be relevant to?

According to Hallett, “there’s an epic commercial migration taking place right now at the intersection of ‘local’ and ’social’.” The same local restaurants, bars, shops (i.e. SMBs) that took 10 years to discover the Internet are now adapting to Twitter and Facebook with a much greater speed.” At Schmap.it, “we make it easier for these SMBs to reach local audiences, and help these target groups to discover vibrant, real-time local content,” affirms Hallett.

Jean-Francois Noel, CEO | 3rd Crust /SeeYourHotel.com
In working with Twitter’s API, 3rd Crust developed two apps that were both based on search/tracking to view where people wanted to go on vacations. According to Noel, “Twitter’s search API is very easy to use and the technical hurdles are minor.” The app provides location points and those points are added to tweets. However Noel feels that Twitter is somewhat limiting when compared to Google’s new social network product, Buzz. With Buzz, there is the ability to be more precise with one’s location and what is nearby. “In fact,” notes Noel, “I see this possibility as one of the best aspects for Buzz on the mobile devices and a problem for Foursquare.”

SeeYourHotel.com is a Web app designed to let you make your accommodations with ease, whether you are traveling for business or pleasure. Using the power and ease of Google Maps technology, you can now find a hotel, then view actual photos of the rooms and facilities, compare with other hotels nearby and then make your reservations all from one convenient site.

Keith Lee, CEO | Booyah & Founder of MyTown
With the location-based social network of MyTown reaching its recent milestone of one million registered users, Keith Lee sees the intersection of the real and digital worlds opening up new forms of monetization and branding opportunities with real-world tie-ins. According to Lee, “the ability to serve geo-targeted advertising and to engage consumers with brands on a local level is the holy grail for marketers. For Booyah, we now have the ability to offer branded virtual items based on proximity to real-world retail locations.”

One of the major limitations with today’s geolocation apps is “the inaccuracy of GPS at indoor environments such as malls. This is a problem since a significant number of shops in the US tend to be indoors. Moreover, it’s challenging to determine if you’re inside the store instead of just outside the store,” Lee adds.

While MyTown does not use Twitter’s GeoAPI, it does use GPS features to check-in at real-world locations to unlock virtual rewards. Players can then buy and upgrade to real-world shops, and enjoy MyTown ownership of their favorite real-life places. The more a place is frequented, the more it raises your shops’ value and rent. It’s a fully dynamic market economy and MyTown leverages the CitySearch API as its local directory to search for nearby restaurants, stores, and other points of interest.

Keith Dutton, CTO | Geodelic Systems
Dutton believes the geolocation APIs have significant potential, as they offer other dimensions that brings targeted, relevant information to users in a specific context. “However, with all the excitement of location specific information, it is important to remember that location is just one more dimension, though obviously a very important one, to relevancy,” Dutton notes. He cites as an example, using a geolocal coupon API. “While we receive a set of local coupons, to create a positive user experience, we still need to prioritize those coupons with additional analysis along traditional dimensions,” he says.

Geodelic’s app proactively shows what is likely to be of interest to a user in his local area. The app’s raw data consists of national geotagged databases, proprietary partner feeds, public partner feeds, live geolocal API calls, hand edited content, and will soon be rolling out a general public facing content publishing system. All this is run through a search engine that takes into account your personal interest profile to highlight points of interest around you. Their many data sources allow Geodelic to augment the API information, so that when an API locates a datum on a local business, it can match it to that local business and present a unified set of enriched information about it.

Dan Gilmartin | Where/Ulocate.com
Gilmartin see the location-base service market becoming more streamlined over time. “As a company that has been developing mobile location based applications since our inception in 2003, we saw early on, a developer had to have a relationship with a carrier, then pass a series of tests in order to get access to the location infrastructure. Today, developers can get access to location from device manufacturers as well as aggregators and the possibilities become endless,” he ascertains.

Where.com’s consumer value proposition is to deliver the best in class local search and discovery experience, through the aggregation of top data feeds. They combine their content into a user friendly application and based on the users’ location and context, they provide the user with distinct offers and deals from local merchants.  Ultimately their goal is to connect consumers and merchants who will have access to a network that delivers location services to users without the need to have them download an application.

Kent Lindstrom, CEO | Oogalabs.com/PlacePop
Lindstrom was the former founder and CEO of Friendster. When he became enamored with location-based social networks, he hired the head of Google Asia Pacific to run Friendster and founded OogaLabs to develop PlacePop, his initial entree’ into the LBS space. Competing head-on with the widely popular Foursquare and Gowalla, Lindstrom’s vision is predicated on providing users with a “dead-simple app” that reduces the mobile location experience to its essence, “much like Facebook did compared to MySpace,” he says.

While he is not yet working with Twitter’s GeoAPI nor does PlacePop have it own API, he finds the development of geolocation an arduous challenge - but one that PlacePop is up for. “For example just to do a “check-in,” it requires multiple systems to work in tandem; namely:  GPS, the phone network itself, the app, a geolocation database, then that all has to be sent back to the phone, in just a few seconds,” Lindstrom notes.

When asking Lindstrom as to how he will differentiate PlacePop from the likes of Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite and MyTown who all gained a foothold in the market last year, he sees it as such: “In my experience, the first movers rarely end up winning, because of the enormous burden of pioneering. Lycos, Powells.com and even his own former company Friendster were all eventually exceeded by the likes of Google, Amazon and Facebook.”

Zak Tanjeloff, Founder | Brring.com & NearToHere
Tanjeloff has not worked with Twitter’s GeoAPI. His alert service called NearToHere has been developed on the Wikipedia API. The challenges he sites in developing geolocation apps points to the “inability for iPhone apps to run in the background - meaning that unless our apps are running, we do not have access to geolocation data, and therefore, cannot deliver relevant content all the time,” he cautions. However he is very enthusiastic about embracing the enormous possibilities of geolocation apps. “With the availability of tremendous APIs to small developers like myself, we are able to build products, seemingly once only available for James Bond, in a quick, efficient, and most importantly, inexpensive manner.”

In considering collaboration with other location-based social network Tanjeloff says, “we are going to continue to layer more content into NearToHere to make it a more robust experience for the user.” Since we are a travel guide, in addition to Wikipedia content, we will next be layering in Yelp’s geolocated content to provide reviews of local business to users as they pass them.”

Tim Napoleon, Co-Founder/President | AllDigital, Inc.
AllDigital offers software and online services that enables the secure transport of digital content to IP-enabled devices including mobile computing devices, the desktop computer, and digital televisions.

In discussing geolocation challenges with Napoleon, he firmly believes that “The biggest issue with GEO data is end user perception. It needs to be really clear how this data is being used or the industry risks consumers disabling the feature,” he says. He sees the ubiquitous nature of geo-information affecting almost every Web page or application we use. “The widest use case is ‘ad targeting’ and ‘right restriction on Premium Content’,” notes Napoleon, where, “the granularity of mobile data is really providing media companies with new ways of pin-pointing users.”

As with so many early-stage social network platforms, extending the service with secondary applications is what makes the functionality truly useful. GeoAPI and the other geolocation APIs mentioned by our experts is a work in progress and as all have indicated, there is a lot more work that needs to be done. With Twitter and Facebook holding their developers conferences two weeks apart in April, I am sure the momentum for API development will kick into high gear shortly thereafter.

As to what major platform will lead the ‘geolocation’ charge by year-end, Booyah’s Keith Lee seems to think if “Facebook decided to incorporate a check-in process into their own API, it will have the capability of destroying all other check-in functionality (found in the majority of location-based social networks) because no one will be able to compete with their 400M+ social graph.” Others think Twitter and their acquisition of Mixer Labs’ GeoAPI will be the major catalyst to give them a leg-up in the geolocation universe.

With success comes consolidation. Potentially some or all the API development firms mentioned here may eventually be absorbed. Schmap’s Hallett is actually planning for that end-game as part of his exit strategy. He believes it’s extremely important that the smaller players like his company Schmap need to “establish defensible positions” to prepare for that outcome. He argues, “My point here is that when a smaller location-service player fails to establish a defensible position (erects little in the way of competitive barriers), then the big guys don’t need to acquire, they can just compete and squash it.”  However, “If the position is defensible, because the smaller player has built up a large enough base of loyal clients/users, or because it has certain key elements to its rollout that would prove difficult or time-consuming to replicate, then an acquisition makes more sense.”
The Year of the API may be a long-winding road as a result of geolocation being part of the mix.