Location Based Networking at SXSW

Since Twitter hit it big on Oprah about this time last year, everyone’s been wondering, “What’s the next big thing.”  The technology that has been emerging as the next big thing appears to be location based social networking tools.  Over the last year, services like Gowalla, Whrrl, and Foursquare have been catching on with the techset and are starting to reach the mainstream.  It has forced other services like Yelp to incorporate location based checkins to their services. 

Just in time for SXSW, one of the players in this area – Brightkite – is planning to launch a universal check-in feature to their service – tieing into the APIs of these other services.  Essentially, this would allow users to check in via Brightkite and it would automatically update their location on Foursquare and others (although Gowalla’s API is currently read-only).

It will be interesting to watch the location based social networking services battle at SXSW this year.  Me, I’ll keep updating the services I have on my phone – Yelp, Gowalla, and Foursquare (just removed Whrrl) – while I’m there.

Skype for iPhone

It’s finally here… one of the apps I’ve been waiting for since I purchased my iPhone – Skype. If you’re not familiar with it, Skype is an instant messenger, voice-over ip, and video teleconferencing service. It’s free as long as you use it to contact other Skype users through the service… however, you can pay for the service and use it to make/receive phone calles, etc. With Skype on my iPhone, I’ll now be able to chat (only on a wi-fi network) without having to use my cell phone minutes. I’m only hoping that the next version of the iPhone firmware will surprise us with video capabilities and we’ll be able to use the Skype app for video conferencing (although I’m not quite sure how to watch the other person and shoot video of myself at the same time – at least without doing it in front of a mirror).

CES 2009

I’m getting ready to head to the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. All of the new technology toys, tools, and gadgets will be on display there – too bad Christmas is over. I’ll try and give some updates on the stuff I see and do while there. Vegas baby, Vegas.