I’m bullish about location-based services in the long term, though I acknowledge they can be tough to monetize currently. Just days ago I was feeling bullish for location-based social network Loopt, but now I’m not so sure.

Mike Arrington is reporting on Techcrunch that Loopt has hired investment firm Allen & Co. to represent them in either a sale or new round of financing.  I think it’s unlikely we’ll see a sale at the moment given our current economic situation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Loopt added to the $13.3 million they’ve already raised from New Enterprise Associates and Sequoia Capital.  What really surprises me though is the valuation numbers floating around the web.  Techcrunch initially reported that Loopt was valued at $250 million (that number has since been crossed out) and Silicon Alley Insider is reporting a valuation closer to $500 million (though they acknowledge it could be misinformation).

Now this I’m having trouble with.  While I am a fan of Loopt, I’m not entirely sure that their user base justifies such a valuation, and I find the timing of this to be funny.  In fact, given the current economy I’m wondering if a sale or new round of financing is signifying some sort of impending doom for the company.  Additionally, it should noted that Mike Arrington has a financial interest in the company, so the numbers could be nothing more than greed-fueled hype.

On most wireless carriers, Loopt charges $3 or $4 for application use.  On the iPhone, where it currently sits as the 22nd most popular application, it’s free.  I believe due to some sort of advertising support.  And while it currently lies ahead of Facebook and MySpace in the iPhone rankings, much of its currrent success is the result of heavy Apple promotion in the form of a television commercial.

Is it more popular overall than Facebook and MySpace.  Not at all, and neither of these mobile applications have implemented any location-aware features yet.  When they do, I think companies like Loopt will be done.  Only location-aware apps that provide very specific solutions to very specific needs will survive.  Think companies like uLocate Communications, whose WHERE app uses widgets that specifically focus on one thing, like locating the nearest Starbucks. Dedicated friend-finders will at best be acquired and at worst, simply die off.

So can I see Loopt being purchased at such a high valuation?  No.  And while I’m putting myself out on a limb by saying this, I have a feeling that should Loopt fail to raise a decent amount of cash, they’ll be in the deadpool very soon.

While most people I’ve talked to that have used Loopt have liked it, sooner or later they’ve removed it from their phones.  This is probably why Loopt introduced Mix a while back, enabling you to find new friends after the established ones ditched the application.  In fact, I’d really like to know how sticky Loopt’s iPhone application is.  Given that the application can’t run in the background, it has to be opened each and every time a user needs to update her location.  This is a huge drawback, and a death wish for an application trying to survive in a convenience-driven society.

I’m not sure exactly what it is, but something doesn’t sit right with me about this deal. Despite positive words from co-founder Sam Walton regarding a partnership with SnapTrack just the other day. Cutting costs, then days later looking for cash.  Is this just smart business strategy in a tough economic environment or is Loopt in trouble?

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Research firm Canalys estimates that global shipments of PND’s rose 14% year-over-year in Q3 2008, but much of that growth is coming from the North American and Asia-Pacific markets.  In Europe, the Middle East, and Africa shipments are down 6%, while GPS-enabled smartphone shipments soared, from 4.7 million units in Q2 to 10.4 million units in Q3.  It’s bad news for PND manufacturers when smartphones outship traditional GPS units.  And it only looks worse when economic considerations are taken into account.  Everyone is cutting back on unnecessary spending, but with most of us considering mobile phones a definite necessity, it’s PND sales that will suffer.

Unfortunately PND manufacturers can’t have this.  Despite a 14% increase in overall shipments in Q3, the overall PND market value declined a huge 21% year-on-year.  While the three market leaders Garmin, TomTom, and Mio continue to grow their respective market shares, despite a rough Q3, all other vendor shipments are at their lowest levels since Q2 2007.  Odds are we’ll see many more PND vendors go the way of Dash Navigation or out of business entirely in the coming year.

That’s great news for location-based application and service providers such as Loopt.  True to previous rumors,  the company has just partnered with Qualcomm subsidiary, SnapTrack, to utilize the company’s QPoint location-based server software.    Most location-based applications result in a cent or two charged to developers and wireless providers each time there is a location query, but the partnership results in Loopt paying a fixed fee for unlimited queries for each user through QPoint.  Loopt is one of few mobile applications that has a substantial user base; the one brick wall standing in the way of the company’s mainstream mobile proliferation has been the cost of usage.

Sam Altman, CEO of Loopt, hopes to eventually partner with all handset manufacturers using Qualcomm chips and with the new cost-effectiveness of Loopt, extend the service to additional wireless providers as well.

I’m looking forward to seeing what the future of Loopt will look like, and whether the portable navigation device will make it through the next couple of years.  Whether or not PND’s stick around, it seems the time is now for mobile application developers/wireless providers/handset manufacturers to start mingling, signing deals, and partnering up to be in a competitive position when the LBS revolution really explodes.

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Up until now Loopt has always confined its iPhone users to connecting with those they already know, and while I love the service I’ve always considered that to be a huge limitation.  However, the company has now launched Loopt Mix which eliminates this pesky problem altogether.  The opt-in service lets you see Loopt user profiles of those you don’t know in your area, and without revealing their exact location or name, enables you to contact them and potentially meet new people.  To make things more relevant, Loopt Mix also enables you to search nearby users by interests, tags, or shared communities like those of TechCrunch or RockTheVote.

Sounds pretty cool, eh?  Loopt Mix is available for free in the United States, and is accessible either from your iPhone’s App Store or www.itunes.com/appstore/.

via lbszone

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Not only is Loopt a provider of one of the most popular social mapping applications in the mobile universe, the mobile social networking company seems to know how to map their way across industry borders as well.  This time Loopt has come together with NonStop Riot, a music marketing agency, to let users follow their favorite bands as they tour across the United States.

Dubbed “Follow The Music”, Loopt’s new feature lets fans of bands such as Shwayze, Chromeo, 3oh!3, The Submarines, The Secret Handshake, A Cursive Memory, Meiko, Valencia, The Medic Droid, and Bayside act as distant groupies using their mobile phones.  Fans will be able to know exactly what city their favorite band is in, plus view photos and updates, add comments to musician’s journals, and even find out where special events are located.

Loopt and NonStop Riot haven’t limited their marketing campaign for “Follow The Music” to the mobile phone either.  Using live video from each band on their MySpace pages and other web-based social networks, Loopt integrates steps to join the program on the traditional internet in order to reach as many possible user’s they can.  In our opinion, Loopt seems to have it all figured out when it comes to acquiring a massive user base for their application.

via venturebeat

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According to ABI Research the answer to the above question is yes.  By 2013, location-based social networks accessed on mobile phones will be a $3.3 billion business globally.  How much money they make now is negligible.  In fact, web-based social networks such as Facebook that have user numbers exponentially greater than the likes of Loopt and Whrrl still aren’t doing all that well.  VentureBeat reports that Facebook only expects to bring in a maximum of $350 million in revenues in 2008, three times that of 2007, but only roughly $9.78 per profile (a rough estimate from 35, 780, 441 unique visits).

Surprisingly though, mobile advertising won’t be the big driver of earnings in mobile social networking.  ABI Research says if anything, dollars will be generated by licensing and revenue-sharing models with wireless carriers.  If this is this case, then networks such as Loopt, carried by all major US wireless carriers are in a good position as is uLocate’s Where platform on which is built many mobile social networks.

Things could change in the next few years though.  Giant web-based networks like Facebook and MySpace will likely become mobile-friendly and with such giant user bases pose a serious threat to the present big names in location-based mobile social networking.  Loopt seems to know this, recently announcing the upcoming integration of Facebook Connect into their service allowing access to both networks’ profiles.  If you can’t beat them, join them, right?

There are still complications in mass adoption of mobile social networking at the present time.  First is privacy concerns.  Knowing that anyone in the world can know your exact location at any time is enough to cause nightmares for anyone.  And without unlimited data plans, playing around for hours on Loopt or their competitors platforms can be expensive.  Guaranteed though, by 2013 these two currently-big issues will be non-issues altogether.

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There was some other Loopt news last week that we didn’t fill you in on, but if you’re a fan you definitely need to know.  First of all, Loopt has joined Facebook Connect allowing users of the mobile social network to bring their Facebook friends to their Loopt network.  Not only will you be alerted when your Facebook friends are near, but you’ll also be able to share and find recommendations for nearby businesses, restaurants and other related points of interests.  You’ll also be able to feed your location to your Facebook profile.  It’s all permission-based of course, so how tightly you restrict your privacy is completely up to you.  This is an excellent strategy on the part of Loopt because not only does it exponentially increase its own user base indirectly, but it aligns the service with one of the most popular social networks on the traditional web.  The Facebook Connect integration will initially be available as an iPhone app when it debuts later this summer, followed by Blackberry support on the Verizon, Sprint Nextel, and Boost Mobile networks.

If you’re a Facebook junkie, chances are you’ve also tried microblogging service Twitter.  You can already “tweet” as they call it, using Loopt on your mobile phone, but now each time you comment using Loopt on Twitter it will be followed by a link to a Google Maps-supplied map pinpointing your location.  While this is definitely a useful new feature, more than anything it shows how user-focused Loopt’s developers are.  How did the company know this was a wanted feature?  They noticed Loopt users would often talk about it when messaging each other using Twitter.

Collectively, this integration of web-based social networks and Loopt will be called Loopt Link and we know for sure it will also include RSS subscriptions in the near future.   What other web-based social networks would you like to see included?

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Last time we mentioned location-based social network Loopt, they’d just released a 3G iPhone app in partnership with Yelp.  Now the mobile startup, which helps you locate your friends and nearby points of interest, has announced something even bigger.

One of the biggest issues currently in scaling a network such as Loopt’s is to get buy-in from wireless carriers.  Problem is, most are leary of paying the huge fees generated by having to access massive amounts of GPS data, something called doing the “dip”.  Even Loopt CEO Sam Altman agreed “the economic model had to change”.

And now it has.  Loopt has entered into an agreement with both SiRF and Qualcomm to access unlimited amounts of GPS data for a fixed fee.  Not only does this knock down Loopt’s operating costs a great deal, but costs carriers a whole lot less to run the app on their supported mobile phones.  Rumor has it that this deal has more behind it than just their social networking application.  Apparently the company is also working on a location-based ad network which will be more accurate and successful as the GPS data it accesses increases.  Now that Loopt will only pay a fixed fee, they’re free to run and develop some really innovative location-based services.  I wonder if main competitor, Pelago, the maker of Whrrl, is worried yet?

via venturebeat

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We’ve talked about Loopt here before and were hardly surprised to see the location-based mobile social network eagerly debut a new iPhone app.  In fact, co-founder and chief exec Sam Altman said that the day the iPhone software development kit was released by Apple, he had one person devoted solely to putting together the application for a full six weeks.  The application is available for free from the iPhone App Store and allows users to use the iPhone’s touchscreen to navigate their way around an interactive map of their location in order to find their friends and see what they are doing.  It functions as an interactive tool that allows friends to find each other, meet up, and hang out and provides reviews of local events and services.

Whether related to the new iPhone app or not, Loopt has made some big inroads lately in syncing their mobile web presence with their ordinary web presence.  One handy feature Loopt integrates into their iPhone app is Yelp reviews.  If you’re not familiar with Yelp, it’s kind of a social network/review database that helps its members find the best and avoid the worst events and services around big-city USA.  Now not only will Loopt help bring friends together, but together in the best places to eat, drink and socialize with the addition of such a content partner.  If you take a look at the iPhone screenshot above, you’ll see map markers that when clicked on will take you directly to Yelp reviews of that particular location.  Disappointly though, for the time being you won’t be able to post Yelp reviews directly through the Loopt application although you can obviously still write Loopt reviews.  Why Loopt has chosen to do this isn’t totally known, but I’d venture to guess that the company wants to build their own platform, not contribute to a competitor’s.  Using an established database such as Yelp does assist in scaling Loopt’s application however.

Further solidifying their online presence is the integration of Loopt status updates into social networks such as Facebook and microblogging service Twitter.  iPhone users can also post updates on status aggregator Friendfeed.  By syncing the a user’s mobile web presence with their online presence, Loopt is poised for success in the future we’re sure.  However they have some hefty competition in the form of Pelago’s Whrrl and uLocate’s Buddy Beacon, both available as iPhone apps.  When it comes right down to the nitty-gritty, it’ll come down to strategic partnerships to decide which company ultimately ends up on top.  Generate a critical mass of user’s, be available on all major wireless networks, and form effective advertising partnership that generate dollars.  The first company to do this will swallow up the others, but we’re sure there will be more competitors on the scene in the near future.  With the GPS capabilities of the second-gen iPhone, the upcoming Android OS bringing in more competition, Windows Mobile and Symbian operating systems all making grounds in laying a foundation for application developers, the going will be tough even for established networks like Loopt.

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Loopt, a location-based mobile friend finding service, has pulled out the big guns and filed a lawsuit against Loop’d Network, an action sports-related social network, citing trademark infringement because of their similar name.  Loopt says the similarity in the names causes confusion for consumers, and while the company is obviously asking the courts to prevent Loop’d from using their name any longer they’re taking things a step further and is seeking damages and three times the profits that Loop’d Networks has earned.

Apparently the two companies have been in talks since last fall, attempting to work out a resolution, but obviously that hasn’t worked out too well.  Loop’d apparently feels that customer confusion isn’t an issue being that the two companies perform very different functions and aim at different audiences.  Loopt has powerful backers though.  They’ve raised almost $20 million from the likes of Sequoia Capital, Y Combinator, and New Enterprise Associates.  Loop’d on the other hand has only been able to raise $1.9 million from unnamed angel investors.

via moconews

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Location-based social network Loopt demoed and announced a native iPhone app at the Worldwide Developer’s Conference yesterday, one of the first iPhone apps to be available when the iPhone app store opens for business in early July. The application will cost you nothing and will use pins on the iPhone’s built-in maps to show you where your friends are. Congrats to Loopt to opening up the gates for other location-based developers to unleash their apps on the 3G iPhone-enabled world. Check out the demo in the video above.

via cnet

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