In terms of location data, few get more than Skyhook Wireless. The positioning technology is in use in tens of millions of devices around the globe, including, notably, on every iPhone. And now the company has a simple way for third-parties to tap into that data in a useful way.
SpotRank gives developers access to hundreds of million of anonymous location entry points put into the Skyhook system. In fact, there are some 500 million points (100 meter “spots”) at the service’s launch. With this massive amount of data, developers can do things such as predict what locations will be hot on which nights, or predict traffic patterns. They have so much data because it’s not based around things like check-ins, which are hot right now on the consumer side of location, but rather everytime a device needs location for anything.
The first partner signing up to use SpotRank is SimpleGeo. It seems like a perfect partnership. SimpleGeo provides back-end location services for many startups, so the more data, the better. And Skyhook’s data goes back several years, a nice addition for the young SimpleGeo.
One thing SimpleGeo co-founder Matt Galligan is particularly excited about is that the SpotRank data is all time-coded. This will allow users of its service to do trending data. And SimpleGeo is working on making the data realtime.
Other partners interested in signing up for SpotRank include the hot location startup Gowalla, and ShopKick, the soon-to-launch retail location check-in service (makers of the CauseWorld app that we’ve covered a few times).
At some point tomorrow, the SpotRank data should be live on Skyhook’s site showing some SXSW data — which will no doubt be huge with the Location War going on.
[photo: flickr/flattop341]
I yet have to see what SimpleGeo provides, but remember when everybody was getting excited about Gnip?
Gowalla and Foursquare must sign up with Skyhook. Their apps definitely have to make sure users check in at places they’re reporting to. Gowalla in that sense is more secure since it relies on GSP but it doesnt work that well inside buildings. On the other hand Skyhook has amassed a huge database of WiFi hotspots which are pretty much ubiquitous these days at bars and restaurants. So this is a perfect match for each other – Skyhook and location apps!
Gowalla already uses Skyhook.
I have an important question to ask. When did users opt-in to share their location data? Skyhook appears to be using data that the user did not opt-in to share with the world. I may be misunderstanding this, but from the looks of this I would think there has been a privacy breach on a cell phone user’s location data.
-Dan Cote
Founder of http://www.YourLocalBlog.com
(An opt-in Hyperlocal blogging network)
You opt in to share it with iPhone applications that then get your location from the iPhone SDK, which uses Skyhook as it’s underlying GPS system, and in exchange for giving the iphone user who requested for the current application to know his coordinates, gives it to Skyhook. Skyhook basically must at some point get the data in order to pass it back to the iPhone user. They just happen to store it indefinitely as well for purposes such as these.
Gowalla in that sense is more secure since it relies on GSP but it doesnt work that well inside buildings