GeoCoding and blogs- the future that will replace phone books
The link above is to an article in Wired about Navizon a really cool combination of several technologies: GPS, SmartPhones, and web 2.0.
Search engines are getting better at localization- ie finding content that is relevant to your specific area- but, there is still a lot of room for improvement. Google Local will be giving the Yellow Pages people a run for their money- however, the key addition of geographic tags to content is still not an established standard.
The Wired article explains how a really bright guy, Cyril Houri, figured out how to augment GPS information by using the locations of cell phone towers and triangulation. The problem with GPS is it doesn’t always work inside buildings – but cell phones do. By coupling the location functions of a cell phone, with the known GPS coordinates of the towers, he’s turned these phones into ways to annotate a site – navizon- or allow you to post data from your cell to a site- complete with GPS coordinates- really handy for a restaurant finder- or just letting people know where you are.
Read the article for another look at the future of the web- and how technologies are converging to create new ways to use data and create opportunities to increase your business.