.mobi Google's My Location for mobile phones

[meegwell]

[not .mobi specific]

One of the best things I see coming with the mobile web is the use of location (GPS) and what I focused a lot of my domain investments on.

Google isn't waiting around for gps functionality in every handset:


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Internet search leader Google Inc (GOOG.O) said on Wednesday it is introducing a novel mapping system that uses cell phone towers to let mobile phone users locate nearby services without typing in addresses.
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Google's new My Location service is being offered in test mode to U.S. users and is designed to expand the percentage of cellphone users of location-aware services, whether or not their phones come equipped with satellite-locating chips.

Google Maps for Mobile with My Location automatically informs mobile phone users where they are on a map. Users simply type the number "0" on their phone to move the map to their approximate location.

Google is offering the service for free, direct to U.S. consumers, and is expected to eventually introduce local advertising that takes advantage of the location-aware service. The company has created the service independent of carriers.

The service uses various algorithms to approximate a user's handset location relative to the cell towers nearest them. The service relies on a database of cell towers Google has constructed by using anonymous readings of mobile signals from previous Google Maps users to help locate My Location users.

 

[Mobi Cheap]

Very interesting, thank you!

Do you think they would also enable the output of coordinates to be easily used in other people's websites?

If that is too much to ask for commercially, perhaps a lower-resolution version can be made available?

 

[sags]

Nothing like Google making themselves everybody's best friend.

Are they paving the way for their future dominance in the market?

I believe they are and that is why I started the another post about Google's plans.

It could be all "wishful" thinking on my part, but I don't believe Google has suddenly turned into the world's biggest charity and they are making a logical progression of steps towards it.

Regards,

Sags

 

[domainitrix]

Nice find meegwell, I particularly like typying in "0" only part and not the zip or full address. I wonder how large an area will single cell tower cover. 0-5 miles, 0-10 miles..,T/F businesses and services within that distance will show up? Would be interesting to see how this developes.

 

[meegwell]

I look at it as a temp bandaid to get there services rolling while waiting for a GPS integration to be standard on devices, and more importantly, easy for app/web developers to make use of in their programs. Makes sense to me.

Im not sure how accurate the cell towers are. There are obviously coordinates to point to the tower, but I dont think you can pinpoint the user...just know that they are within some range of that tower...maybe how far from the tower, but not how far in which direction.

In anycase, full GPS integration will resolve all of this.

If anyone hasn't read the thread that sags mentioned, I highly recommend you do so.

 

[folletx]

Mylocations.mobi

If it's good for google is good for me !!!

Location based services will hit the market in the future, of course the app's based on this technology will be really succesfull.

And that's what I look forward "Mylocations.mobi", what do you think?