According to ABI Reseach, the emergence of location-based mobile social networking services such as GyPSii, Pelago and Loopt is revolutionizing social networking and is set to generate $3.3 billion by 2013. However, at the moment it’s not the advertising that generates the revenue for the service providers. Rather it’s licensing and revenue-sharing deals that location-based [...]

Remember that Apple patent application that hinted at the Cupertino-based fruit-company working with Starbucks? Right, well it's looking ever more likely that Apple will come through with a location-based solution allowing iPhone owners to interact with their surroundings. The previous patent application surfaced in December. The USPTO documentation outlined a method by which iPhone users could [...]

We've already covered AAA's mobile offering in the past. Now they've announced that users of the popular BlackBerry 8130 and 8830 smartphones can also use their service, whether they are AAA members or non-members. As with the standard Java ME-based version, the RIM-made device owners can also receive visual and audible (turn-by-turn) directions to any [...]

It only makes sense when you think about it. Once we reach some service quality level, no one would want to carry more devices if they don’t have to. In a not that distant future, we’ll see the portable navigation device (PND) makers like TomTom and Garmin either dying or changing. Both companies are obviously already working on the latter, hence you can get their software for all the major smartphone platforms. However, by integrating GPS receivers in more models in the future - it’s the handset makers, and the end users, which will benefit the most. According to Telematics Research Group, the worldwide portable navigation market is set to grow from 50 million units in 2007 to more than 500 million units in 2015. TRG estimates 30M dedicated PNDs were sold last year and about 20M navigation-enabled mobile phones for a total of 50M units. Both segments will grow rapidly over the next few years but navigation-enabled mobile phones will start outselling dedicated PNDs next year… Full release is available from here (PDF). ---Related Articles at IntoMobile:The beginning of the end for portable MP3 players?Nokia 5300/5700 cloned as portable media playerGarmin and TomTom to launch their own GPS-enabled phones this year?First Linux phone with GPS navigationMio plans to go mobile next year