Loopt has the most tightly integrated and feature rich mobile social networking service we’ve seen, and we’ve seen a bunch.
Loopt’s mobile application lets you broadcast your location even while your phone is closed and send messages or photos between you and your friends. It can do this to a greater degree because of their deal with Sprint/Nextel, which recently went un-exclusive. But a social application isn’t all that useful unless your friends are using it too, and so far Loopt has been limited to the Sprint network. That is, until now.
Loopt is launching a beta program for developers on a new mobile social networking platform. The platform will free user’s data from the network and let developers incorporate it into new SMS, WAP, or mobile location based applications using Loopt’s APIs. Loopt’s API’s will feed geographical data from users who opt into the applications to a developers program. Yahoo’s Brickhouse has been working on a similar GPS platform as well (Fire Eagle), but relies on the programmer to feed the location data into the service. Another location based service, Plazes, doesn’t use GPS, but solves the problem by letting users “bookmark” their location to make broadcasting their movements easier. Loopt says their API will solve the compatibility problems between phones and networks for developers so they only have to worry about building the application.
To participate in the beta, go here and tell them how you’d use the service. They’re working with a group of 15 to 20 developers on designing the first applications already and will be supporting some more carriers as well, although the details hush hush.
However, you can imagine what kinds of services will develop. With location data, you could make smarter search queries, trigger location related messages, or more easily post photos or messages related to your location.
Loopt says their deal with Sprint and related carriers gives them potential exposure to over 50 million users, although they haven’t released any user numbers. Boost, which they originally launched with, has last reported they had 100,000 users and not updated that number in some time.
Congrats!
Loopt is a really cool (but controversial) idea. Glad to see they’re doing well.
This a great idea! Congratulation to the Loopt team.
not covering digg reel ?
Nick, another YC startup?! Are you their official staff writer?
Well with more than 100,000 customers in its first three months of launch of Boost Mobile. I think this will be really cool for the younger generation and also be cool just to have as a feature on any phone carrier.
Parul
http://www.bhopu.com
verizon is going open and Loopt is opening up its platform
you see any connection ?
loopt will run out of cash and disappear in 2008.
Do you know http://www.ipoki.com?
Ipoki is a GPS based social network with a little API in the same way.
Great, my friends need to use this as they always text me really hard to follow directions.
Does anyone know what services are they going to expose?
I mean – “…mobile social networking platform…” brings to mind facebook/OpenSocial etc, but I don’t see how this fits loopt unless they are going to start hosting 3rd party applications, but that is (although intriguing) seems too far out…
This company is on it last legs – I understand that they have about 5,000 acitve users and are burning through all thier investment. Might as well add this company to the dead pool. If I was and investor I would do exactly what vantagepoint did to 3guppies – taxi off the runway – get your money out now
I can use Loopt on my Nextel-powered Boost Mobile phone, but it’s quite useless becasue nobody that I know uses it.
I think that Twitter is faster, cheaper, and easier – why bother with maps on the sub-2.5G data service that Nextel’s iDEN network uses?