I think there is a very good name in the LBS framework which is Gypsii. This is a pretty decent mobile social networking site operating on the LBS framework.

You can visit gypsii.com for further details. The future of LBS is clearly dependent on the kind of applns that could be designed around it. Possibly in the month of September you could see some action with a company launching this service on a grand scale…..

Nice article on LBS and its state in India. We at LocationGuru, certainly believe LBS is closer to reality than ever…my take – you’ll start hearing/using services as early as middle of next year.

While you are following companies focussing on LBS in India, you may want to check us out at http://www.locationguru.com.

While the social effort does sound interesting, I dont think it would entice a lot of folks. After all, everyone wants to keep their commercial interests first. So, if Yulop has geocoded locations, they’ve spent quite some time and effort to get the first mover advantage. For strategic reasons, I dont think they’d want to share this info with others.

I’d also add Reliance’s investment in Pelago (considering its relevance to India)

Based on initial impressions, seems like Whirrl (Pelago) is one of the more promising iPhone based (LBS) social networks along with Loopt’s new product for the iPhone.

As for Indian LBS, it’s something which is an obvious need … I feel MapmyIndia has done a good job. Yahoo and Google are getting there … , it will still be pretty difficult. I’d love to see a communal effort .. almost a social geotagging service with some sort of incentive. Door to door geotagging is possible but would be a massive undertaking. Yulop…claims to geocode locations? I wish them all the best, but am wary on how accurate they will be .. especially when using triangulation.

thanks for stopping by and provide your perspective. The one thing I’m wondering about — what if a self reported approach is taken in India till GPS – GPRS becomes pervasive ?

It would be interesting to see how well its embraced by the mobile savvy indian population. Of course, this is till the GPS-GPRS void gets filled in.

Meanwhile, I’d definitely like to connect offline to see how you collected the cell tower data

good luck to you guys man.

@jason

can you point me to some these companies that are working on LBS apps for India ?

I have been a silent reader of your Feeds,its very impressive with the way its been carried on…thanks for all the updates you have been providing with Indian Startup community.

Coming back, anytime LBS is spoken about i am always excited, we @ Yulop figured out a way to bring about LBS to India 12 months back, its been a herculean task till date, but yes we ave publicly gone ahead in saying we have the LBS ready and working for city based needs……probably people in Bangalore who are interested could also contact me for a private Demo…. its only a strategic decision not to have it in public beta yet.

My 2 cents about LBS in India

> The first thing to be sorted is to geotag every entity and identify them with respect to Lat. and lon…. the key in here is to identify what should be geo tagged and how could this be deployed.

> Looking froward ,the crux being how to locate the user [i am only mentioning about Mobile access], yes the option being the GPS or the most common Cell ID, there isn’t been any publicly available Cell ID, but we have mapped every Cell ID for 6 cities irrespective of the operator [i can explain you this offline ] along with 6 city Geo tagged data.

> But what i personally feel is waiting for another 12-18 months, when every high end user would have a GPS enabled phones and Operator shouldn’t be a bottleneck.

> Anyways to access this service we know, we got to have GPRS enabled service from the operator, which in itself is a biggest bottleneck with penetration, all these are expected to change in few months when GPRS is available for every college student and Housewife [ I have heard about GPRS tipping point : early 2009]

> But until GPRS or for that matter GPS is to be available with everyone we really can’t be holding our business, hence the approach of SMS is also been made available where we identify user based on the SMS.

I am happy to take the note ” LBS is a hot cake” at least for next decade, I feel every entity on this earth would have a location and building killer apps should be need of the hour.

We at Yulop are in the middle of launching something very unique yet very significant related to LBS for India in coming days, probably before it is been released i would be happy to get your feedback

Look forward for Geo India