The Steve Rubel Stream

Insights on emerging technologies and trends.
Steve Rubel
Steve Rubel (bio) is SVP, Director of Insights for Edelman Digital, a division of Edelman - the world's largest independent PR firm.

He is charged with helping clients identify emerging technologies and trends that can be applied in marketing communications programs. Rubel also explores these topics on his site, a monthly Forbes.com column and in a bi-weekly AdAge column. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook as well.

Steve can be reached via email at steverubel@gmail.com.

Note: Everything posted on this site is Steve's personal opinion. It does not represent the views of Edelman or its clients.

               

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Video Interview: Dennis Crowley, Foursquare

via youtube.com

Do you play Foursquare? I have to admit I didn't until recently. But Foursquare, which is a mobile social networking site, is growing rapidly. I base this by the number of friend requests I receive (here's my profile). Some like David Armano are wisely asking if it's for real or not. Time will tell. I had breakfast yesterday with Dennis Crowley, Foursquare's co-founder to learn a little bit more. Here's my brief video interview with Dennis.

Filed under  Foursquare   interviews   local   location based services   mobile   nyc   Social Networking   video  
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Posted 7 months ago

Touch the Future of the Geo Web with Weather Underground

As I write this item there's a severe thunderstorm warning here in the NYC area. So, naturally, I pulled up the weather on my iPhone. In the process I discovered that Weather Underground has an amazing mobile radar site called the Wundermap that gives you a taste of what the web will look like soon everywhere - geo-sensing and touch interactive.

Simply hit this page in any geo-capable browser. I tested it in Firefox 3.5 on the desktop and mobile Safari on an iPhone. It should not only auto-detect your location, but also allow you to zoom in or out either via mutli-touch gestures (on an Macbook or iPhone) or simply by using your mouse wheel.

Amazing stuff considering this is not an app or Flash-based, but simply a web page. Sure Google Maps does some of this but I found the combo impressive.

     
Click here to download:
Touch_the_Future_of_the_Geo_We.zip (962 KB)

Filed under  local   location based services   mobile   touch  
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Posted 7 months ago

More Location Based Services Coming to the Desktop

Google today said they are bringing location awareness to Google Maps on the desktop. I tested it today in Google Chrome here in Illinois and it worked really well, as you can see from the image.

So, where does this go from here? When you think about the metadata, lots of possibilities beyond this little feature...
  • Commerce - click a product on a site to find this item in a store near me where I am right now
  • Social - Loopt, Foursquare, etc. begin to work equally well from the desktop
  • News - citizen journalist reports from computer webcams can now more easily add metadata
  • Productivity - web-apps get location data automatically embedded; great for sales forces
  • Advertising - think of Google ads served based on your location that are hyperlocal
The upshot is that this is part of a bigger trend. Mobile isn't just about phones. It's about mobility. It's a state of being that covers an array of devices (netbooks, phones, Kindles, GPS systems) that tap into location based services that sync across. 

Location Based Services are one of the most exciting areas to watch right now.
Filed under  advertising   google   journalism   local   location based services   maps   mobile   Producitivity   Social Networking  
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Posted 8 months ago

Google Labs Adds City Tours

Google Labs added a new experimental feature tonight called City Tours. The Tours tool "helps you identify points of interest and plan multi-day trips to most major cities... just specify the location of your hotel and the length of your trip and City Tours will map out an itinerary for you." You can take a tour of New York City, my hometown, here.
Filed under  google   local   maps   search   travel  
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Posted 9 months ago
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