'Net Features : geolocation

Developer Apps Get Hyper-Local with Geo-Friendly Yahoo! BOSS

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 22:30:00 GMT

Right alongside mobile and social, local is the area where developers are investing their energy and venture capitalists their dollars. Local, anything local, is big business and in the past year the development has only accelerated.

A recent example of this can be found at Yahoo!. The company's BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service) just announced BOSS Geo, a new addition to its Search API comprised of two rather powerful geo-related services now available for BOSS developers.

PlaceFinder is a geo-coder service. The feature enables developers to convert an address into a latitude/longitude. PlaceFinder also works in reverse (aptly called a reverse geo-coder), changing lat-long coordinates into a physical address. Idea for check-in services, PlaceFinder currently powers popular applications including FourSquare.

The other geo-related service is Yahoo's PlaceSpotter API (formerly PlaceMaker) which now allows developers to add location awareness to content. Since most content has meaningful geographical information, using the API developers will be able to extract that rich data and provide another layer of meaningful geo-data on top of it. For example, read an article about one restaurant, and through the PlaceSpotter API, developers can recommend places in the same neighborhood.

Gain Better Access to IP Geolocation Data

Michael Garrity — Tue, 22 May 2012 23:00:00 GMT

Geolocation and IP intelligence technology provider Digital Element has released its new NetAcuity Developer’s Edition, which makes it easier for businesses to quickly access the IP geolocation data available in Digital Element’s flagship product line.

Companies can use the NetAcuity Developer’s Edition to discover the value that geolocation can provide their organizations through evaluation use, small deployments or development projects based around other Web services, applications, platforms or IPv6 initiatives. Smaller businesses can use this opportunity to test drive geotargeting capabilities with a low initial investment.

The Developer’s Edition features geodata about country, state/region, city, latitude/longitude or connection speed information. It also offers other data sets, flat file delivery, data limits (a maximum of 1 million IP lookups per month), monthly data updates and accuracy at approximately 99 percent for country level and 90 percent at the city level.

Users get either a one-time file download or they can subscribe to downloadable monthly updates. Initial downloads cost anywhere form $75-$150 for the first one, depending on data sets, with subscriptions for ongoing updates costing $50 per month after that.

Social Geo-location Strategies for Black Friday

Allison Howen — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:00:00 GMT

Big names in the retail industry are jumping on the geolocation bandwagon, especially for the busiest shopping weekend of the year.

For example, Sports Authority is offering $25 cash cards for customers that check-in with Foursquare and spend $100 or more, JC Penney will donate $25 (up to $100,000) to the Salvation Army for every Foursquare check-in, while American Eagle is unlocking a 15 percent off coupon to every customer that checks-in on Foursquare. However, these promotions don’t have to be limited to big name corporations, small businesses can jump on the geolocation bandwagon too.

Here are three tips for merchants that want to create social geolocation promotions for the busiest shopping weekend of the year:

Foursquare Specials - Foursquare provides merchants with the ability to create many different types of offers that are available for customers upon check-in – which can be very valuable during the busiest shopping weekend of the year. For instance, merchants can create a discount with purchase offer, like $10 off of a $50 purchase, or free gift with purchase specials. So if your business isn’t already on Foursquare, use this as an incentive to create a merchant page today.

Facebook Contests - It is time to think outside of the box. Organize a contest that gives away a free gift through a random drawing of the customers that check-into your store on Facebook Places over the weekend. Also, to ensure your winning customer comes back and shops more, make the free gift a $50 gift card to your store.

Reward the Early Birds - Although your store may not be opening at midnight like many other retailers on Black Friday, merchants can still reward the early birds. Promote a free gift or special discount for the first twenty customers that check-in either on Facebook or Foursquare on Friday morning.

For more holiday-related social media tips, check out these tips from Website Magazine.

Study Shows Adult's Smartphone Activities

Allison Howen — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 16:00:00 GMT

A recent study gives valuable information about American adult’s smartphone use and geolocation activities.

The study, taken by Pew Research Center, shows that 83 percent of American adults own a cell phone, with 35 percent being smart phone owners.

Additional findings show that most adult smartphone users do basic things with their phones like take pictures, send photos and receive emails. However 59 percent use their phone to access social networking sites and 55 percent use their phone to get location-based directions or recommendations.

As of May 2011, the study also found that 12 percent of smartphone users utilize a geosocial service like Foursquare to “check in” places, yet this type of service is most popular with adults that are under 50 years-old and in households that make at least $75,000 a year.

Hottest of 2010 are Most Likely Targets for Crime in 2011

Administrator — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 17:54:00 GMT

A report released on Tuesday by security firm McAfee predicts that the top targets for cybercrime in 2011 will include smartphones, geolocation services, URL shorteners and devices that run Apple operating systems. Social networks and Internet TV platforms such as Google TV also made the list of potential threats from online scammers.

“We’ve seen significant advancements in device and social network adoption, placing a bullseye on the platforms and services users are embracing the most,” says Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs. “These platforms and services have become very popular in a short amount of time, and we’re already seeing a significant increase in vulnerabilities, attacks and data loss.”

As the hottest new services and devices achieve widespread awareness and adoption by users, they also become more likely targets for cybercriminals, warns the report. In the case of URL shorteners, for example, Twitter users have grown so accustomed to them that most people rarely give a second thought before clicking on a link – making them a potentially dangerous vehicle for the spread of viruses and other malicious attacks.

Social networks have been ripe for attacks since their inception because of the open exchange of data between users. But now with the widespread adoption of location services such as Facebook Places and Foursquare during the past year, cybercriminals have gained an even clearer view into users’ whereabouts and interests as well as what operating systems and applications they are using.

Mobile devices, particularly those used on corporate networks and those running Apple OS, are also going to be increasingly hot targets for crime in 2011, according to McAfee.