GEO-LOCATION: 5 New Apps to Watch

“What’s on your mind?” (Facebook) and “What’s happening?” (Twitter) are becoming boreing already. Circles (G+) is the next big thing but in terms of questions, the hot one today is “Where are you?” and users want deals and discounts from merchants for telling you that they are at your business location.

Applications like Foursquare and Gowalla are already big hits with social networkers and merchants alike. Here are 5 Geolocation startups to watch.

Tackable is a new social network that places live smartphone photos on a map. Log onto the map to see a live picture of all the interesting things happening in your city, right now. Eventually, you’ll be able to pull the map into any corner of the globe you want, and experience media created in real-time, by people on the ground.

The process is really simple: Open up the Tackable app on your smartphone, and take a live photo of something you find visually interesting. Write a caption, and instantly send the photo to a live, public map. Special players create photo assignments, directing the actions of thousands of people.

http://www.tackable.com

BUMP.com is an integrated web and mobile messaging platform, launched to the public in September 2010 that allows anyone to send a message to any license plate in the United States, at any time. Messages can be sent via email, text or voice, and are directed to a specific license plate. In order to receive messages and offers (BUMPs), the license plate owner must “claim” his or her plate on BUMP.com.

The company is also planing on rolling out new services, such as a roadside assistance package similar to what is offered by automobile clubs, however, with a broader range of benefits and lifestyle services. BUMP will also facilitate special offers and discounts to members, based on the preferences, driving patterns and options they choose for their BUMP dashboard of personal settings.

Merchants can use security cameras to feed images of license plate images into the BUMP’s system. BUMP.com, using license plate scanning technology and real-time information fed into the system will enable merchants to send message to users offering discounts or other promotions.

http://bump.com/

Localmind is where Quora meets Foursquare. Localmind gives you the ability to ask a question of someone checked-in at any location. Find out how crowded a bar is, how long the line to the restaurant is, or what the drink specials are.

When you check-in with your favorite check-in service (such as Foursquare, Gowalla, or Facebook Places) you become available to be sent a question about that location. If a fellow user has a question about that location, you receive a notification and can respond in real-time.

http://www.localmind.com/

Micello is “Google Mapsinside a building” and is building the foundation to disrupt the entireoutdoor LBS ecosystem, by taking it inside. We are a pioneer in creatingdigital, geo-accurate and dynamic indoormaps of places where people gather like shopping malls, airports, museums,college campuses, theme parks and business campuses. Micello has developed the tools and technologyto rapidly build a database of indoor maps. Our map data allows applicationdevelopers, internet map providers and businesses to create a new class ofhyper-local applications

http://www.micello.com/