Cody Barbierri is a contributing writer at VentureBeat and Social Media Manager at Piehead. (None of his posts are about clients or their competitors.) Reach him at cody@venturebeat.com (tips should always be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), or on Twitter at @codybarbierri.

stories by Cody Barbierri

Local Hero: Josh Williams, Gowalla

Company: Gowalla
Location: Austin, Texas
Founded: 2009
Founders: Josh Williams, Scott Raymond
Funding: $10.4 million
Employees: 25

Not many people can say that the weather was their main inspiration for launching a startup, but that’s exactly what happened to …

Local Hero: Sam Altman, Loopt

Company: Loopt
Location: Mountain View, Calif.
Founded: 2006
Founder: Sam Altman
Funding: $17 million
Employees: 40

One of the first location-based services, Loopt has been quietly leading the charge since 2006 under chief executive and founder Sam Altman. Altman …

Local Hero: Seth Priebatsch, Scvngr

Company: Scvngr
Location: Boston
Founded: June 2008
Founder: Seth Priebatsch
Funding: $4.8 million
Employees: 50

Scvngr founder Seth Priebatsch — who prefers the title “chief ninja” to “CEO” — took the idea of checking in to a location to …

NBA to launch Turnstile check-in app for games

The National Basketball League (NBA) may be looking to take advantage of the growing popularity of consumers checking-in to locations through its own application dubbed Turnstile, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The new application is supposed to be released …

Loopt brings users closer to Facebook friends

Loopt, an early leader in location-based services, today announced it has integrated Facebook Places into its mobile check-in application. The application is available for iPhone and iPod touch.

Loopt users will now be able to seamlessly connect their Facebook profiles …