Hi there,
as I am currently involved in the Mobeedo Project, I thought why not give you a little overview about what we are doing.
In short, Mobeedo is basically a platform that allows you to easily create your own location aware applications or websites for Mobile Phones.
Ok, and now for the longer version. What is location aware? Location aware applications generally can only work with phones that have GPS. Which means the phone knows where you are. And based on your location your phone, or any kind of software that runs on your phone can make certain guesses about what is interesting to you right now. For example, if you are currently in Innsbruck, you are likely not interested in events that take place in Vienna this evening. So based on the built in GPS, your phone actually knows that you are in Innsbruck, and therefore it can be clever and suggest: “Hey, you are in Innsbruck today, you totally have to see Death Rockers Incorporated at such and such.”
Ok, this is location aware.
Now what does this have to do with mobeedo and how does it help you to create location aware websites? Mobeedo gives you two tools, one for consumers, and one for producers. Currently the client, which is the tool for information “consumers” is only available for Google Android based mobile phones, and right now the only phone that qualifies as Android Phone is the HTC G1 or also known as T-Mobile G1.
And the “Mobeedo Client” is available through the Android Software Market, if you own such a device. What it does is it switches on the built in GPS, and shows you all the relevant information for your current position. Simple that is.
Now lets go the the Mobeedo Cockpit. This is much more interesting, because this is the tool that allows you to create your own Location aware websites. Technically you can also create complex web applications, but Mobeedo will only handle the “location aware” part, and the “application” part you would need to take care of yourself. Therefore we will stick to “location aware websites” for now.
Ok, go to the aforementioned cockpit, draw a shape on the map, and add a link to your website with information that is interesting whenever you or everyone else is physically inside this shape. If you do not have a website already for that information, you can enter it into a “wiki”-form inside the cockpit, now how convenient is this?
Sweet, now this should provide you with enough information, to get you started with working on your own location aware mobile websites.
Oh, and because the Mobeedo team is extra nice, we have already imported all of Wikipedia into the system, to give you something to look at, while waiting for the rest of the world to add its websites to Mobeedo.
Have fun,
Cheers
-Richard