Socialight / blog+news

Riding high on the news of their acquisition by Nokia for $8.1 billion, NAVTEQ is explaining the future of the location services industry with more clarity than I’ve ever heard from them before. I’ve been attending NAVTEQ-sponsored events for 3 years now, but this morning at their NAVTEQ Connections 2007 meeting in San Francisco, I’m finally hearing a vision that truly resonates, and I’m hearing it loud and clear.

Here’s what caught my attention during Winston Guillory’s (SVP, Consumer and Enterprise Sales) keynote:

• The end-user will have an important role as a source of data. It’s no longer just about getting content to the consumer; users collecting location-based content is an important piece of the puzzle and that’s a big part of why the Nokia marriage makes sense.
• Valuable content changes over time. This isn’t by any means a new realization, but today, it’s finally realistic to build products incorporating live location-based content streams.
• Pedestrian consumption is a huge growth area. Last year, NAVTEQ announced a renewed focus on pedestrian routing. Now they’re starting to talk seriously about pedestrian consumption of content not just for routing, but live content, filtered through the sources you trust, delivered to you when you’re in the city. I think that with the growing growing proportion of the world’s population that’s urban and the growing mobile youth market, this sector will continue to gain in importance.

We could not be more excited. Socialight is location-aware throughout the UK!* Simply text 88811 and we’ll look up where you are and give you the sticky notes around you. You can send a blank text, a search word, or even someone’s Socialight nickname. We’ll find all the relevant notes and send the closest ones back to you. You can also tell us where you are simply and easily by simply texting ‘at’ and the location, e.g. “at covent garden, london”. Best of all, it’s currently free. Check to see if your phone number and country are correct in your account and give 88811 a shot!

* We can look up the location of any Vodafone, Orange, O2 and T-Mobile phone. If you are on Three, Virgin or other network, you can still use the shortcode, but you’ll have to tell us your location manually. (sniff! shout at your network! we’d love it if they opened up…)

While the UK service is live countrywide, we’ve got something special for London… First of all, we’ve loaded nearly every bar, pub, tourist attraction and hotel so you can find the closest ones really easily, just by texting ‘pub’ or ‘bar’ etc. to 88811. But, better than that, we’re delighted to announce something Londoner’s really wanted: a tool to find cool late night happenings in the ancient labyrinth! “Late London” was conceived and written by Socialight users, specifically artists and musicians that spend their lives trawling the bar and club scene. So if you’re at a loose end after the pubs close, scratch London’s underbelly… text LATE to 88811 for a good time…

Not in London? Don’t worry, we’ll be expanding these types of services across the UK and then the US, Europe, and South Africa. In fact, if you have ideas like Late London, or want to work with us on content where you live, give us a shout.

full launch press release here

Next week Thursday, I’ll be in Chicago at Forrester’s Consumer Forum 2007 on a mobile social panel with Nick Tommarello from Urban Interactive and Vidya Lakshmipathy from Forrester. Here’s how they describe the overall conference:

Fueled by cheap devices and pervasive access, individuals are increasingly taking cues from one another rather than from institutions — a phenomenon that creates chaos for traditional brands, sellers, and media outlets.

Sound fun right? If you’re going to be there, come on over and introduce yourself.