First we had Ryan Sarver from Skyhook speak…
Ryan talked about Skyhook, which is a GPS based application. Skyhook does Wi-fi based positioning that uses 56,000,000 Wi-fi access points to identify locations and also uses something called Triangulation, which is a process of determining the location of a point by measuring angles to it from known points at either end of a fixed baseline.
A nice feature of the app is that it works indoors as well as in pesky dead zones where your phone has no service.
Next we heard from Ethan who spoke on behalf of Urban Spoon.
Urban Spoon is an app used to find restaurants based on either your current location (using GPS) or a specific restaurant determined by the user using the search feature.
Not only does it sort restaurants by location, but also by type of food and average cost. Plus you can read food and restaurant reviews to really narrow down your choices.
There’s even a social network that allows you to add friends and share different restaurants with eachother.
I have an iPhone myself and use Urban Spoon all the time. I especially like the shake feature! Just shake it until you find what you’re looking for!
Scott from NearbyNow took the stage next.
Nearbynow is an app that makes shopping at places like department stores a breeze! This app gives you the ability to find a product and the closest retailer in your area that has the item in stock you’re looking for in stock!
NearbyNow basically lets you see any stores inventory at any given shopping center. There is even a concierge service that will call the store to verify the product you requested and have the store hold it for you!
Next was Siva from TheFind.com
TheFind.com is a search engine that only searches and locates retail websites. They currently boast listings for around 500,000 sites and access to almost 250 million products.
You can search by physical address to get maps and locations of stores in specific areas, or let the phone find your current location and search for the store closest to you.
As of now the application for the iPhone hasn’t been approved by apple and is only available online, but the app itself is in its Beta version and is expected to be available soon!
Last but not least we had Sonia from Yelp.
Yelp is a community based app that allows you to read reviews and get the low-down on just about anything local to you, including a companies product, restaurants and food, stores, bars and cafes. In fact, restaurants are a third Yelp’s content!
Yelp makes it easy for user to locate what they are looking for with the use of maps, distances and the ability to search by price.
Yelp boasts a community made up of people giving real reviews of their experiences with all types of businesses and services, making it easier to get a dependable advice, which in turn makes or a much better shopping experience…
