VentureBeat

As promised, Facebook has rolled out a new, more robust iPhone application. Version 2.0 brings many of the features that are found on the regular Internet-based version of the social network, but had been lacking in the first few iPhone iterations.

Included in the update are: Notifications, the full News Feed, people search, friend requests, photo tagging, photo captioning, full Mini-Feeds, inbox search and message attachments. The update also promises to be more stable and run faster even with a large number of friends.

The application description states: “This is now the best way to use Facebook on your iPhone.” That’s important because the native app really hasn’t been the best way to use Facebook on the iPhone thus far. What worked better was the brilliant web-based version Facebook made and optimized for the iPhone before the device could accept third party applications. The fact that you couldn’t use the newer app to do something like accept friend requests was ridiculous. Now you finally can.

I’m using version 2.0 of the app right now; it’s really quite beautiful. The first thing you’ll notice is that it has gained a lot of color. Aside from the traditional Facebook blue and white, the button to comment on feed items is now a green dialog box with a plus sign in it. New messages and notifications are clearly noted with red circles with the number of requests inside.

But it’s the little things that may make this app great. Tapping areas in which you would type something, such as the green comment boxes, zoom out a large comment box. It’s a small thing that most people may not care about, but that attention to detail make this app look and feel almost like Apple itself designed it. The same is true with the secondary bar on the New Feed tab. You can scroll it from side to side with your finger — and if you flick it, it keeps scrolling, showing your the various options.

The area from which you update your status are now higher up and are always displayed along the top of the main home area, as is the button to take or upload a picture. It has seemed pretty clear since the first version of the app that Facebook wants more people to use the service to update their status, and at least among my friends, it looks like they certainly are.

The first version of the iPhone application was more like a communication tool than a mobile Facebook. This new version is regular Facebook, but is arguably even better with its sexy user interface and the fact that it’s mobile. Certainly some users who are upset with Facebook recent Internet-version redesign may like this more — it’s less confusing.

So what’s next for the iPhone Facebook app? My guess would be some sort of location functionality. Services like Loopt, Whrrl and Where are getting better at figuring out how to make location-based networks be compelling within an iPhone app, but the giant elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about is the likelihood that the much larger social networks like MySpace and Facebook will soon get into the location game themselves.

As I’ve talked about before, the key to location-based services taking off is having friends (as in people you actually know) use them. Loopt’s most recent update with Loopt Mix which allows you to find other users near you who wish to share their information was an important first step — but most people still aren’t going to reach out to strangers around them. They will reach out to friends around them however. And Facebook is all about friends.

Version 1.1 of the location-based social networking application Loopt has just gone live in Apple’s App Store. This update carries with it a big new feature: Loopt Mix. This feature solves perhaps the biggest problem facing many of the location-based networks: You can’t find anyone else using them.

While Loopt Mix may or may not make your actual friends join Loopt, it will show you others around you who are using the service and have opted-in to share their location as well. The opt-in part is important because obviously some people will not appreciate complete strangers knowing where they are at times.

To use Loopt Mix you simply start Loopt and click on the Mix icon at the bottom of the screen. This displays a page that will show you all other users around you based on proximity. Clicking on a name will bring up a profile that can show you more information about them such as gender (if it isn’t obvious from their icon) and what they’re looking for — as in networking, dating, friendship, men/women, etc. You also have the option to send the person a message.

Creepy? Maybe a bit, but also potentially interesting and powerful. The problem with location-based networks right now is that there’s a stalker stigma attached to them somewhat. That may or may not go away, but it seems fairly likely that it will as other larger networks such as Facebook and MySpace add location data to their networks as well.

Think about the potential of walking into a conference where you’re not sure who you know. You can start up Loopt and instantly find out who is there with you. Same thing with a coffee shop. Or maybe you walk into a bar, maybe you’re lonely, maybe someone else is. I’m just saying…

I’ve actually been using Loopt Mix for a while. Loopt was installing it manually on people’s phones at TechCrunch’s August Capital event several weeks ago. Even with only a handful of people using it, it was kind of cool to see it in action. I could, for example, often see when Loopt chief executive Sam Altman was around me.

Loopt Mix also features the ability to tag yourself with various interests, and has communities which you can join to further customize groups of people you want to meet. For example, two of the early communities are Rock the Vote and imeem, so fans of either can join those communities and find other fans nearby using Loopt Mix.

You can also do searches for types of people you are looking for based on tags, age range, gender and what they’re looking for.

Disabling Loopt Mix in those times where you don’t want to be found is as easy as one tap of a button on the screen. You can also obviously set what attributes you want to share with the public. Since Apple doesn’t allow applications to run in the background, Loopt Mix will only work for now when you have the application open. That’s a problem — one that I hope Apple will step up and fix.

I just downloaded the update and started using it again — there are already at least a dozen people I can see around me. Again, somewhat creepy due to the stigma, but kind of cool.

I firmly believe that location will play an important role in many of the mobile-based applications of the future. Loopt Mix is an important step towards getting people used to the idea of using something that on the face of it may seem invasive, but has a great upside as well.

With a global positioning system (GPS) chip now in the iPhone 3G, location services are becoming important to many mobile application developers. Each day, we’re seeing new iPhone apps launch which, if they’re not centered around location, rely heavily on it for core functions. But because Apple will not allow any applications to run in the background, it is hampering much of what location-based services (LBS) can do, as Brady Forrest rightly argued on O’Reilly Radar a couple days ago. Manual location updates are fine, but real-time updates regardless of if you’re using your phone or not, are the future.

This sentiment is shared by Pelago chief executive and co-founder Jeff Holden. His company makes the location-based app, Whrrl. An app which venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins saw enough promise in to make Pelago the first recipient of money from the iFund, the firm’s $100 million fund to spur iPhone application development.

Whrrl is a nice application, but it could be much more, and Holden knows it. The key idea behind the app is to “drive down the friction with which you can share experiences,” Holden told me when I met with him at last week’s CTIA conference in San Francisco, Calif. The key to that is getting people to use the app.

Certainly, promotions such as the one Whrrl is currently doing with the hit HBO television show Entourage, in which fictional characters from the show send location and status updates, help. But usage may skyrocket if a user could just have a device in their pocket that signals to friends where they are or who they’re with.

To many people this sounds scary, and naturally it would have to be something that is opt-in and could easily be turned off for private moments. But many, including Forrest in his piece, realize the power of being able to know when a friend is nearby. Or passively updating your location which can likewise tell your friends where you are.

Obviously, other location-based applications such as Loopt and Where would benefit from continual location updates as well. Unfortunately, that’s simply going to be hard to do unless Apple changes its plans for the iPhone. While the upcoming Push Notification System will be somewhat useful for these location-centric apps, it will not allow the apps to run in the background. Instead, it sort of mimics background messaging functionality through its own servers. Because of that, it doesn’t seem like it will be possible to continually update something like your location throughout the day.

Instead, as Holden explained, another Whrrl user could ping you to let you know they’ve checked in somewhere even if you don’t have the Whrrl app open. That ping would direct you to open the app to update your own status. That’s basically a Facebook “poke” or a Twitter “nudge” — cute, but not really all that powerful.

Holden sounded much more optimistic about the other platforms that Whrrl is running on or will soon run on. Phones such as RIM’s BlackBerry running on networks such as Verizon’s should allow for LBS background features eventually. Likewise, Google’s upcoming Android platform will have background location features. Applications like Life360 depend on it.

When these are released and if they become as popular as Holden thinks they will, expect the pressure to be on Apple to follow suit.

That may end up being the catalyst that makes Apple open its iPhone platform a bit more to allow apps to run in the background. Remember, initially Apple wasn’t going to allow third-party developers to make native apps — all development was to be done through the Safari browser. Apple relented on that. And it might as well for background-running apps.

The future of location services may depend on it.

[photo: flickr/CJ Sorg]

Some fans love to follow around their favorite bands and will do so across the country. If you happen to be into bands such as Shwayze, Chromeo, 3oh!3, The Submarines, The Secret Handshake, A Cursive Memory, Meiko, Valencia, The Medic Droid or Bayside, you’re in luck. Now you can pinpoint their exact location when they’re on tour this summer using the location-based mobile social network Loopt.

Even if you’re not into obsessively following around your favorite band, Loopt’s new “Follow the Music” program will alert you when the band comes into the town you’re in. The band can then alert you about special events if you’re close by.

Humorously, Loopt also says bands may “also ask fans for recommendations on things to do as they pull into a new city.” I know that I always wanted to tell my favorite band growing up, Pearl Jam, where to get a donut in my hometown.

Seriously though, this could be a potentially cool feature for the service if bands beyond this select group start using it. It’s a good example of technology brining fans closer their favorite artists.

Loopt currently works on a number of smartphones including the iPhone with its slick native application.

July was slowest for IPOs in five years — A measly 56 companies went public last month, raising $5.6 billion. Pretty depressing, compared to last year’s figure of 190 companies and $31.7 billion. This month is expected to be similarly slow, with a pickup coming late in the year or early next.

From free to 3 cents for music in China — Chinese startup Wawawa has a great idea: Actually charging for music in China, where the notion of paying for pleasant sounds hasn’t quite taken root yet. At 3 cents per song, it might even get some takers. As a hook to draw in users, the site will offer music from less well-known artists.Dean: Strong consumer electronics results and demand in emerging markets continued to boost semiconductor sales, with June figures up 8% from a year ago.

New Facebook competition kicks off — The fbFund Developer Competition for Facebook applications has begun, giving 25 top developers and entrepreneurs a chance to win $25,000, with a $250,000 grand prize.

EA’s payout for Rupture half the reported amount — Shawn Fanning, the founder of Napster, finally hit paydirt when Electronic Arts recently acquired ThreeSF, a company he started that was the parent of social gaming network Rupture. But where initial reports suggested that the acquisition price was $30 million, it was actually only $15 million, according to an EA 10-Q dug up by Silicon Alley Insider.

Where Google’s IPO went wrong — Most will have by now forgotten the parade of mistakes that attended Google initial public offering, but Lisa Buyer, who managed the debut, peels off the scabs to show what went wrong in an interview with peHUB. “We came across as exceptionally arrogant,” she says, “and I understand why.”

All the things a VC needs — What kind of return does it take to satisfy a venture fund, and more importantly, its investors? At least three times the initial investment, according to Fred Wilson, but if you want more details you can read the rest here.

Tesla brings on former Ford exec as CFO — California’s Tesla Motors has been filling its ranks with transplants from the traditional automobile industry. Following the recent appointment of Mazda North American concept car developer Franz von Holzhausen as design director at the company, it has now hired Deepak Ahuja, most recently controller for Ford’s fuel-efficient vehicle program, as chief financial officer.

Loopt signs up with MetroPCS — Having already launched on most of the major cell carriers in the United States, location-based social networking app Loopt has added MetroPCS to its roster.

Judge should dismiss MySpace case, says EFF — A case brought against the mother who allegedly drove a teenage girl to suicide in Missouri should not be pursued, says the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which fears that a precedent would be set for prosecution of many more Internet users.

While even the popular social networks nowadays aren’t making that much money (Facebook expects to make $350 million in revenues this year), the burgeoning field of mobile social networks could be big business shortly, a new report by ABI Research indicates. Specifically, location-based mobile social networks could earn revenues of $3.3 billion within five years.

This is great news for many of the location-based mobile networks out there now such as Whrrl, Loopt, Where and Plazes. Each of these networks have garnered various amounts of buzz recently; Whrrl, Loopt and Where thanks mainly to the iPhone 3G launch and Plazes thanks to its sale to Nokia. But there is still some question as to how this money will be brought in.

The most direct means of making money will likely be licensing and revenue-sharing models with the wireless carriers and handset manufacturers, ABI concludes. Loopt, for example, has deals with all of the major carriers in the U.S.

But more interesting (and potentially lucrative) could be an area that the report notes “holds a lot of promise” — location-based mobile advertising.

A source close to Loopt told us last month that a driving force behind its deal to make the use of GPS data more cost effective was that it is working on an elaborate location-based advertising system. The company is apparently putting a lot of stock is such a system taking off.

These location-based social networks should soon face serious competition from the current social networking leaders such as Facebook and MySpace. While the mobile upstarts may have a lead out of the gate with location technology, the more traditional social networks have huge advantages in terms of overall users. Adding a layer such as location on a mobile version of these sites is less challenging than building an entirely new user base, as Silicon Alley Insider notes.

[photo: flickr/pinkbelt]

Updated

Well, it’s all over but the drinking. Our panel of experts has selected the best companies presenting at MobileBeat 2008 today in Sunnyvale. Since we didn’t know the winners ahead of time, the Tesla Awards (pictured left, named for inventor Nikola Tesla) weren’t engraved yet, but the winning executives did get a warm handshake from Accenture’s Lars Kamp, who presented the awards.

Here are the winners:

Crowd favorite (the favorite company, selected by MobileBeat attendees): AdMob, a leading mobile ad network serving billions of ad impressions monthly globally, and doing interesting analytics. The company just added some cool new features to its iPhone ads.

Best overall application: Loopt, a company offering location-based applications for users of various carriers, including Sprint and Verizon. Loopt just struck deals to access massive amounts of GPS data.

Best overall infrastructure: AdMob.

Best CEO: Dan Shapiro of Ontela, which offers easy-to-use photo-taking and sharing technology that lets you upload media from cameras to PC. The company sells white-labeled product to carriers.

Best mobile person under 35: Sam Altman of Loopt.

Most controversial move: Mig33, a mobile application that’s seeing rapid global growth for its bundle of SMS text messaging, instant messaging and cheap calls.

Biggest blunder: Mig33. Update: Just to be clear, this is meant to be a light-hearted award, and a celebration of a company that’s learned from its mistakes and gone on to be successful. That’s certainly the case with Mig33. I can’t speak for our judges, but when I interviewed Mig33’s chief executive Steven Goh before the conference, he said the company’s biggest blunder was its initial product, a failed SMS offering. Once the company relaunched its service with beefed-up features, however, things started to take off.

Boldest idea: Skydeck, which lets you analyze your phone calling behavior based on bills you get from your phone carrier. For one thing, it can show you the strength of your friendships.

The winners were selected from the companies that we identified as the Top 10 at MobileBeat. The only exceptions were “best CEO” and “boldest idea,” for which all top 30 companies were eligible. Attendees also voted on a “people’s choice,” namely a company in the 30 that should join the top 10 presenting on stage. The winner was Radar, a company that offers easy photo-sharing and commenting on all phones, and boasts over one million users.

Are new platforms such as the Apple iPhone or Google’s upcoming Android being overhyped? That’s for certain. But the “Bang or Bust” panelists at MobileBeat 2008 offered their own nuanced takes about where the opportunities are and how fast they will come as closed mobile platforms open up.

Users are already flocking to the iPhone in part because it has many more choices of software available for download compared to your typical cell phone or smart phone. Sam Altman, CEO of location service Loopt, said that iPhone owners use his service 47 times more than other mobile users. Those kinds of results are the norm for companies that develop applications for the iPhone and other phones, he said. (Data shows that as many as 31 million applications have been downloaded from the App Store in just the past month).

Rich Miner, general manager of the Google Android platform, said that what’s different now is that software developers who understand consumer experiences are flocking to the new platforms. That’s forcing more changes to accommodate them, such as more open access to applications.

J. H. Kah, senior vice president at South Korea’s SK Telecom, warned that the iPhone will give consumers just a taste of what they want in terms of accessing applications over 3G data services. But the demand will be so great that those consumers will quickly find that the bandwidth available to them is underwhelming.

“The iPhone 3G is a wake-up call for American carriers to upgrade their networks,” Kah said, noting that Asian carriers have provided much faster connectivity for a while. “People will demand more from their networks.”

The slowness of the networks could hold back progress. In the meantime, the iPhone 3G is here and is clearly the focus of new investment in applications because the phones are selling out.

Matt Murphy, head of Kleiner Perkins‘ $100 million iFund, said that his fund has invested in five iPhone application companies so far. That includes iControl, which brings home automation to the iPhone so you can use it to control the lights in your home. He noted that, even with its more closed approach, Apple has opened new opportunities for app developers who were previously stuck dealing with carriers to get their software up on the “deck” of a phone where users could use it. Now, it’s much easier to get an application up on Apple’s App Store. Since the debut of the store, more than 1,000 applications are now available. Over time, Murphy predicted new business models would emerge beyond charging a fee for App Store software. Those include virtual goods sales and affiliate sales programs, where those who promote transactions can get a cut of the transaction amount.

That, in turn, should whet the appetite for getting applications on a broader array of phones using the Google Android platform. Miner said that the project is on schedule with four major handset makers engaged in making Android phones now. Carriers are also at work on carrier-branded Android phones, he said. The first will hit in the second half of 2008 and many more will come next year. There is still a wait-and-see attitude on Android, though.

Asked if the Android software development kit was delayed, Miner said that his company did roll out new updated kits to a small number of higher-profile developers. But he said more members of the developer community would get their kits soon, allowing them to get started on development.

“Android is getting attention because of its openness them, but people want to see volume sales before they develop for it in droves,” Murphy said.

He said that developers have the choice of either making an application that can run on a couple of hundred phones or a feature-rich application that exploits the uniqueness of the most popular smart phone, the iPhone. Trying to do both may stretch resources too thin.

Erick Schonfeld, editor of TechCrunch, moderated the panel. He asked whether the open versus closed models would play out between Android and the iPhone, much the same way that Microsoft’s more-open approach won out against Apple’s closed approach in the computer wars. That’s the big question.

Loopt, the location-based social network, uses GPS technology in cellphones to figure out where you are. Because of this it can tell you things such as which of your friends are around you, or what restaurants you are near. Unfortunately, the cost of accessing this GPS data, doing a “dip” as it’s called, has been very prohibitive. Consumers may not realize it as much, but it’s a problem in selling an application like Loopt to carriers. As Loopt founder Sam Altman told me, “the economic model had to change.”

Today, it is.

Loopt has reached deals with both Qualcomm and SiRF to give it unlimited dips of GPS data for one flat fee, Altman announced at MobileBeat 2008 today. What does this mean? Nearly every phone with a GPS chip right now will be able to use the Loopt application for a much better deal.

The carriers and handset makers still have to buy into this new plan, but you can be sure that is going to happen now that Loopt has this deal.

Loopt has been garnering a lot of buzz recently as devices such as the iPhone 3G are bringing GPS-based apps more into the public consciousness. Loopt is attempting to be the main player in this the location-based networking arena. It faces competition from the likes of Pelago’s Whrrl.

A source close to the company tells us that this announcement will be huge because Loopt is working on a location-based ad network of some kind. Obviously something like will work better the more times the app is able to pull in GPS data. Now, there is no cost restriction in doing that.

The location-based social networking application Loopt has definitely been one of my favorite early iPhone apps — at least in promise. I say that because when it works, it works great, but many users have been having issues with its location functionality. The service rolled out an update tonight to address this as well as the recent issue it’s had with sending out notices to your phone’s contact list.

I talked with Loopt chief executive Sam Altman via email about some of the issues myself and others had been having with the location finding functionality, and told me it was a GPS issue on the iPhone 3G. Altman says that with tonight’s update, the service should be “way better,” and upon testing it myself, I’m certain he’s correct.

Previously, Loopt could only locate me sporadically. Most of the time the app was stuck in the “Locating” process. In testing the new update for the couple hours walking around, it’s been able to pinpoint me everytime.

Altman declined to specify what the company did to rectify the issues it was having.

The other major issue that got Loopt in the news the past couple of days involved troubling privacy issues regarding how Loopt utilized your phone’s contact list. Due to some tricky wording and user interface choices, users were inadvertantly sending out location updates to users’ entire address books. Just because someone is in your address book, you may not want them knowing where you are at all times, as blogger Justine Ezarik pointed out.

Altman weighed in on the issue on the Loopt blog a couple days ago, apologizing for the confusion and taking the blame for the feature. Tonight’s update fixes the issue, promising “a clearer friend invite flow which makes it more explicit which friends you are inviting.”

Check out MobileBeat2008, VentureBeat’s conference on July 24.

Apple selected only a handful of new native applications to show off at its WWDC event last month. One of them was Loopt, the location-based social networking application. Today, Loopt launches this iPhone application alongside the App Store and it has a few surprises that were not yet revealed.

The biggest of these surprises is that Loopt will partner with other companies to pull in local area information. While Loopt may know where you are and which of your friends is around you, knowing information such as what restaurants are around and what others think of them add another layer. The first partner Loopt is announcing it arguably the best for this: local review site Yelp.

By teaming up with Yelp, Loopt will give users options such as seeing the 10 coolest places around you. This list is made not only by the highest rated places on Yelp but also based on things such as your own personal contact recommendations. You can also see information such as where you friends have been most recently and places they left remarks about recently. Naturally, you can share your recommendations with friends as well.

While Loopt made it clear that it would be adding quite a few more partners for content in the weeks and months ahead, Yelp is a huge score for them. This is especially true considering that Yelp is launching its own iPhone app.

Another new feature, Loopt Link allows you to share information with other social networks. Loopt launched a Facebook application a couple months ago and this is building off of that. There is also an RSS feed for all of this information which will allow you to pipe your data into any community that will import feed information.

Finally, Loopt has put extensive security rules in place. As you might imagine, a location-based social network can be daunting for some users who are wary of other people knowing where they are at all times. Loopt remedies this by easily enabling users to shut off their location sharing. Loopt co-founder and chief executive Sam Altman told us this ability to “go dark” is as easy as clicking one button.

Interestingly enough, you can also override your automatic location with one that you manually input — this means you can lie about where you are.

One of the other great things about Loopt is that it works on a variety of phones, so your contacts are not limited to simply friends who have iPhones. For example, you can have a friend who is using the Loopt Blackberry app and still get all of their information.

Loopt also recently announced a partnership with the mobile carrier Sprint. Verizon Wireless has backed it as well.

With all of this exciting news you might think that Loopt would sit back for a bit and let its new iPhone application settle in — but the company is already hard at work on its first update. Altman tells us that a new feature will be coming next week will be “the biggest game changer we’ve ever launched.”

How’s that for setting expectations high?

Altman declined to elaborate further but noted that you can expect Loopt to update its app about once a month. He notes that the iTunes app platform makes it very easy to do this thanks to syncing over iTunes.

Loopt facing competition in the location-based social network sphere on the iPhone. Just today alongside the App Store, two other competitors including Whrrl and Limbo. Whrrl is the app by Pelago that was the first to be accepted into Kleiner Perkins’ $100 million iFund set up to spur iPhone app development.

Loopt is available right now in the iTunes App Store which just launched this morning alongside the 2.0 software and iTunes 7.7. The application is a free download.

Loopt is backed with $5 million from Sequoia Capital and New Enterprise Associates.

Check out MobileBeat2008, VentureBeat’s conference on July 24.

Nokia, the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, has agreed to acquire the Swiss-German start-up Plazes, the companies said in a statement today.

Plazes, based in Berlin, Germany is a service that lets you share your location and leave a brief message — akin to Twitter — about what you’re doing. Your message is placed on a map. In other words, it’s like Twitter, only with the added feature of location tags. Plazes’ most recent version actually integrates Twitter into its service entirely.

The move comes at a time when location-based services are all the rage.

The arrival of the iPhone and other devices using location (GPS) technology is spurring the development of numerous applications that exploit a user’s whereabouts to provide useful services. Various writers have recently opined at VentureBeat about location-based services (here and here). In fact, at this point, it may be over-hyped.

Plazes has 13 employees.

The acquisition is part of Nokia’s effort to bulk up on its social presence and time-based activity planning features, it said. It also is a sign that Nokia doesn’t want to cede too much ground on cool location applications to players such as Apple (Plazes had written an application for Apple’s iPhone recently), which has forged close ties with other similar services (location-based social network application Loopt was demonstrated during Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote earlier this month). In 2006, Nokia also acquired Berlin’s Gate5 for a rumored $250 million, according to Techcrunch, and turned the product into Nokia Maps.

Another mobile social network, Zyb, was acquired by Vodafone recently for a rumored $48 million, or much more than the $25 million Zyb was seeking to be valued by investors when it was searching for a round of financing earlier this year. European investors had passed on Zyb at the time, reportedly doubtful about the promise of the LBS market. We’ve heard that Plazes was similarly under-appreciated until recently.

Nokia is building GPS into its newer handsets, so this make sense.

Carriers are getting active too. VentureBeat has learned that Verizon made a minority investment in both Loopt and popular GPS-based mobile phone navigation application, Networks in Motion.

Despite the Nokia deal, Plazes’ iPhone application is still said to be a go. It will be available in the iPhone App store when the iPhone 3G launches in July. Going forward however, one has to wonder if it’s in Nokia’s best interests to have a Plazes app on the iPhone. After all, Apple is positioning itself to be a major rival to Nokia with the worldwide launch of the iPhone in over 70 countries.

Other players in the social LBS arena include Brightkite and Whrrl. Who knows, Twitter may even get its act together and jump into the location game.

No financial details were disclosed on the Nokia-Plazes deal. Plazes raised about 3.7 million euros over two round.

[MG Siegler contributed to this article.]

[Check out MobileBeat, VentureBeat's mobile conference on July 24. Vote for your favorite mobile application or service company.]

updated

Loopt, the cellphone service that lets you track your friends on a map and communicate with them, said it is now also available on RIM’s BlackBerry Curve, Pearl and World devices.

This makes Loopt the third location-based service (LBS) to be available on the majority of U.S. smartphones, but arguably lets it open a lead over competitors Whrrl and Brightkite in this segment. I’ve illustrated the competitive field with one of my napkin drawings below. You’ll see that Loopt has an extra green box at the top because of its coup at Apple’s WWDC last week, when it was featured as part of Steve Jobs’ keynote. Loopt beat out Whrrl, we reported last week.

I’d appreciate feedback from the LBS companies, in case I’ve misunderstood the availability of their apps.

The illustration omits the added advantage Loopt enjoys by having struck deals with the major U.S carriers. It has signed with Sprint and Verizon, and while it hasn’t announced AT&T yet, we’re expecting it to — due to the fact it was featured so prominently during the 3G iPhone announcement last week (the iPhone’s US carrier is AT&T).

With the Blackberry, Loopt announces a number of other carriers:

Loopt.. announced today that the location-based service is now available for free to BlackBerry users on the Sprint, Alltel, T-Mobile and AT&T networks. BlackBerry users can now share their location information with friends across multiple devices and carrier networks.

Some perspective: The U.S. smartphone market saw sales of 7.3 million units in the first quarter, a global record of 106 percent annual growth, according to research company Gartner. Another research company, IDC, estimates RIM’s market share at 44.5 percent, Apple’s at 19.2 percent. The Pearl, Curve and World are believed to be the most popular Blackberry phones.

Note that Loopt was already available on Motorola, Samsung, LG and Sanyo feature phones prior to this announcement, which we group together under “Others” in the diagram. Whrrl offers a simplified SMS version of its service for other phones. Brightkite offers a “generic” mobile application, which we’ve heard mixed feedback about from experts.

The pending release of the 3G iPhone has spurred speculation about pending wild growth of smartphone sales and application development. Based on the Apple keynote announcement that the iPhone would have GPS technology, many foresee a bright future for location-based services. That’s because LBS applications make up the largest share of mobile applications total sales.

However, there seems some controversy in this, based on the experience with LBS so far.

Venturebeat guest author Jason Devitt published a piece Saturday describing his nine years in the LBS industry. In the piece he describes in depth the challenges LBS has been facing over that time, including Loopt’s challenges, but he also nods to the opportunity the 3G iPhone now represents.

His view can be seen as moderate, mind you. One of the world’s top mobile consultants, Tomi Ahonen, questions the viability of LBS, calling it “singularly the biggest failure of our industry” and much more. His considerable experience makes an impressive anti-LBS case.

Still, as Devitt points out in this comments to Tomi Ahonen’s article, there’s counter-evidence suggesting LBS’s success too (for example mobile application sales).

Ahonen uses thinly veiled references to criticize Devitt’s piece, or at least so it seems (coming a day after Devitt’s piece was published), referring refers to “semi-credible experts on LBS,” and “current statements coming from the West Coast of America.” However, like Devitt, I believe LBS is about to succeed on current generation smartphones.

VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall contributed to this article.

[Check out MobileBeat2008, VentureBeat's mobile conference on July 24. Vote for your favorite mobile application or service company]

Here’s the latest action:

Another long time Yahoo employee departs — Jeremy Zawodny, a programmer who had been with the company since 1999, is moving on to a unnamed smaller company. Zawodny helped launch the Yahoo Developer Network and worked on several internal projects for the company. In his blog post on the topic, Zawodny points out that his departure is completely unrelated to the failed Microsoft takeover and now the Carl Icahn takeover bid. He follows other old-school Yahoo employees such as Bradley Horowitz out the door (Horowitz went to Google).

Did Loopt beat out Whrrl for Apple WWDC keynote placement? — A May BusinessWeek article insinuated that Whrrl might be one of the 3rd party iPhone apps showcased at the WWDC keynote. Instead, a competing location-based service (LBS) app, Loopt, was. Whrrl, created by Pelago, was the first app to be accepted into Kleiner Perkins’ iFund program, which is giving out $100 million to 3rd party iPhone app developers. Snub or oversight?

Google Street View turns one, adds a ton of cities — The controversial and borderline voyeuristic site has rolled out the service in 37 new areas. Find the full list on their blog post, and also note that a number of national parks are now included in the project.

Virgin Galactic rolls out the mothership, no really — The new aircraft, called WhiteKnightTwo, is designed to haul the passenger-filled SpaceShipTwo to its orbital altitude of 50,000 feet, according to USA Today. Billionaire Richard Branson is the “Spaceliner chief” of Virgin Galactic. In other billionaires in space news, Google co-founder Sergey Brin made a $5 million investment in Space Adventures, a company that will take two passengers up to the International Space Station in 2011 — expect Brin to be one of them.

Microsoft can’t buy Facebook, so it has built its own Facebook — Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration, but it is interesting that the software giant, which owns a small percentage of the social network, has now built and is testing a network that is described as “Facebook-like,” according to InfoWorld. The project is called TownSquare, and is already in use by around 8,000 Microsoft employees.

Sirius-XM merger faces hold up in Washington — A new letter being requested by the Senate indicates that the two satellite radio companies have not complied with the FCC requirements that their receivers be interoperable, according to the Wall Street Journal. Such an omission could stall, or kill, the deal.

Symantec buys SwapDrive — The deal, signed last week, is said to be for $123 million, according to TechCrunch. SwapDrive competes in the online storage space with AOL’s Xdrive and Microsoft’s Windows Live SkyDrive, and there is always rumor that Google will enter the space as well.

Cella Irvine is named chief executive of the About Group — The About Group runs the popular website About.com, which is owned by The New York Times Co.

Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) cuts forcast for growth — The chip giant says sales will slow in 2008 due to price pressure from the memory sector.

A Korean blog fuels a massive protest — You have to go to this site to see the picture, it’s crazy.

Daughter of well-known valley VC Tim Draper, has a new valley show coming — The show, called Valley Girl, will be about innovation in Silicon Valley. It will debut next month with interviews with Google chief executive Eric Schmidt. Jesse Draper is one of the stars of the hit Nickelodeon show, Naked Brothers Band.

Wall Tetris at MindTribe — The Palo Alto-based company has a really cool interactive game on one of its walls that passers by can play with their cell phones.