If the sales figures are good, we’ll do an update for the upcoming S40 phone.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2009/1016/1224256785951.html

http://www.mercurynews.com/business-headlines/ci_13420463?nclick_check=1

Established in October 2007, the ITLG is an independent organization comprised of a number of high-level technology leaders in Silicon Valley who are Irish or Irish-American. The Group includes senior executives from some of the Valley’s leading corporations, each of whom are committed to helping Ireland address the challenges of embracing new technology opportunities.

“Silicon Valley” attendees can familiarise themselves in advance of the conference.  The Locle-branded implementation of the Locle Platform can be viewed at www.locle.com (desktop), m.locle.com (mobile web) and get.locle.com (mobile app download).

Developers intersted in creating their own location-based mobile social applications are invited to register their interest in the Locle Platform at developers.locle.com.

Locle Mini for Android “Google” phones, such as the HTC T-Mobile G1, is now available from the Android Market.

Locle Mini for Android is free to download and free to pass on to friends.

The mobile app is also available from Locle’s mobile download page at http://get.locle.com.

Locle Mini is now available on 10 mobile platforms: iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Nokia S60, Nokia S80, UIQ, Palm OS, Palm Pre, Java Mobile (J2me) SonyEricsson, Windows Mobile;  and also as a WAP 2.0 mobile website at http://m.locle.com and http://locle.mobi.

http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/08/03/locle-launches-location-api-for-other-apps/

Locle yesterday launched an upgrade to its location platform, presenting an API for web services which makes the entire web application available to 3rd parties through a set of standardised web interfaces.

Application developers that are planning to introduce location features to their own applications can now leverage the Locle system for their own benefit. It lets developers code their own front-end (be they desktop clients, web applications, mobile apps, gadgets/widgets, SMS or voice response services) to interact directly with the API.

As Sting sang: “If you love someone, set them free”.  And so it is with Locle’s location-based mobile social application platform.

This is very similar to how the Twitter platform is revealed through the Twitter API, except Locle has a revenue system built into the API, with location-based advertising, promotions and coupons, in-app micropayments and wallet.

The Locle API comes with full Twitter, Facebook and OpenSocial integration; canvas app and gadget libraries in PHP; and, soon, native mobile app libraries for Java Mobile (J2ME), Blackberry, Symbian S60 and S80 editions 1, 2, 3 and 5, Windows Mobile 5 and 6, Palm OS, Palm Pre, Android, iPhone/iPod Touch.

The upgrade included a reworking of the Locle mobile website at http://m.locle.com.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0401/1224243795000.html

And compare our own:

http://www.dublincoastaldevelopment.com/irishtimes.com/breaking/2009/0401/breaking1.htm

http://www.lemobile20.com/2009/schedule/selection-zapping-startup-le-mobile-20/

Google’s launch version of Latitude does not bring anything significantly new to the mobile friend-finder space, with well-established players such as Locle, Nulaz, Belysio, Rummble, Aka-Aki, BrightKite and Loopt (http://bdnooz.com/lbsn-location-based-social-networking-links/). 

Google seems to be forgetting their own message, that location is a commodity (thanks to their own geoLocation API).   A compelling mobile friend-finder application needs more than to show where friends are.

Google’s announced mobile platform support will cover about 30% of the mobile phones in the market today.  They have some catching up to do with Locle’s 70% market support.

Google Latitude is being released as YASN (yet another social network) with no support of external social networks and communities.

However, Googles established install base of Google Maps for Mobile will give everyone a run for their money.

But should Google be getting into the “buddy finder” software business.  Their mission is to sell more advertising.  They should be focused on providing the tools and technologies to established companies to drive more location-based, mobile and social traffic that can be monitized with Google’s AdWords machine.

http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/02/locate-your-friends-in-real-time-with.html

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/see-where-your-friends-are-with-google.html

“It reminds me slightly of the Irish Locle startup, a new mobile application that lets users see where their friends and family are without the need for GPS or mobile network operator location based services. However, Locle is much more social in that it integrates with social application platforms such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace to bring social networking functionality to the phone. Locify is much more of a platform.”

We agree

http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/07/30/locify-makes-mobiles-location-aware/

“New services include … Locle.com, which will use Loki to show where your friends are on social networks.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jul/24/mobilephones.wifi