Loopt is the third location aware mobile social network to become available for the majority of U.S. smartphones . It joins fellow competitors Whrrl and Brightkite, both of which have already started to gain traction (see ReadWriteWeb coverage of Brightkite). However, this is not a market where the first one to debut on the smartphone will be the ultimate winner. Instead, in the wild west of the mobile social networks, the key will be adoption. This is an area where Loopt is making headway, having recently announced deals with all the major U.S. carriers and support for Blackberry smartphones.

About Loopt

Loopt actually launched back in 2006 after receiving funding from YCombinator as well as Series A from NEA and Sequioa. Back then, it was only available to Boost Mobile customers as a Java mobile client. In 2007, Loopt added Sprint Nextel to their list of carriers. However, it was this year when Loopt really started to grow, announcing more deals and a developers program which provides access to Loopt’s APIs for building location-aware applications.

Today, Loopt has deals with all major U.S. carriers, including AT&T, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, Alltel, and Boost Mobile. Although some networks support more phones than others, Loopt has made a smart move by not ignoring the other big smartphone out there – the Blackberry. Loopt now works on Blackberry phones on Sprint, Alltel, T-Mobile, and AT&T.

In addition to Blackberry support, Loopt works with a handful of other popular phones, like Sprint’s Razr and Razr2, but the big news of late was the reveal of the new Loopt app for the 3G iPhone which was featured during Steve Jobs’ WWDC keynote.

How It Works

Like other location-based mobile social networks, Loopt lets you share your location, status, and photos with everyone on the service or just with your friends. A built-in mapping application shows you where your friends are and what they’re doing. To send out updates, you can either use your Loopt friend list or use AIM, thanks to included integration with that instant messaging service.

As you move around, Loopt uses GPS to automatically update your location and status – a feature that some people (usually those in the older generation) find a little disconcerting. For additional privacy, this location updating feature can be set to “manual” mode instead. Of course, you’re in control of who gets to “spy” on you – if you don’t want to be stalked by unknown strangers, then you simply don’t friend them.

A Loopt Map

The Problem With Loopt

Despite all the new Blackberry phones supported, there are still several models that aren’t yet able to use Loopt. (My T-Mobile Pearl would be one of them). Of course, there are also tons of “regular” phones that are unsupported, too. Meanwhile, the service has to compete with other mobile social networks, like Brightkite for example, where the only barrier to entry is the ability to use SMS.

For Loopt, some questions remain: can a mobile social network really succeed if only a limited number of phones are supported? Can Loopt succeed if they only focus on smartphones?

Maybe, maybe not…but then again, it could be that Loopt is just betting on the fact that in year or so from now after everyone’s contracts run out, we’ll all just be using iPhones anyway. Because really, that Loopt app for iPhone is pretty hot:

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Related Articles at last100:

• Nokia purchases Plazes, a location-based social networking service
• Weekly wrapup, 16-20 June 2008 (Supernova edition)
• Location-based services like Whrrl on iPhone to usher in Internet of people, places, and things
• Nokia dumps location-based service Friend View, falls in love with Facebook
• Google Latitude shows what’s wrong with Nokia’s social location (SoLo) strategy

BusinessWeek reports that Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the venture capital firm behind the iPhone funding program iFund, have chosen two companies as its top picks to date — Whrrl from Pelago and Home Security 2.0 from iControl Networks.

Kleiner Perkins, a big fan of location-based services, has extended an offer to one other startup and are “seriously considering” 10 others, whatever that means.

Whrrl combines the mapping capabilities of the iPhone with the ability to find information on your friends, where you’ve been, where anybody has been — in essence, connecting people, places, and things. Whrrl currently works on the BlackBerry Pearl and Curve.

iControl’s application isn’t as sexy as Whrrl — it is home automation after all — but it gives users the ability to communicate to the places and things important in their lives, namely their homes or businesses and what’s in them like door locks, air conditioners, lights, and so on.

Add these programs to the applications being developed as part of the Android Developers Challenge (Bread Crumbz, LifeAware, Beetaun) and you can see a locations, locations, locations trend forming. In Wired lingo, it would be:

• plain old voice communications: “expired”
• mobile Internet surfing: “tired”
• using mobile devices to interact with people, places, and things: “wired”

“There’s going to be a ‘what’s going on around me right now’ button,” Kleiner Perkins partner Matt Murphy told BusinessWeek. “You’re always one button away from that immediate context.”

Location-based services like Whrrl have been discussed for many years, but initially it was like: You walk by Starbucks, the store knows you are there, it sends you a $1 off coupon. Yawn.

Location-based services still are considered the next killer mobile app because technology such as GPS, mapping, geo tagging, and social networks are enabling new hardware, software, and user behavior, making Whrrl and another friend tracker, Loopt, possible.

For most people, location-based services are initially hard to understand. Why do I want people to know where I am at all times? Why do I care where my neighbor is?

But when applications like Whrrl and Loopt are a part of the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android-powered Gphones like Google Maps are today, average users will begin to see the advantages and how they can use these services in their lives.

As BusinessWeek notes, “Say you’re lost in Las Vegas and need a restaurant recommendation. With iPhone in hand, you can scan the locations of nearby restaurants, just Italian restaurants, or just those recommended by foodie friends. Or you could search for the highest-rated bars or kid-friendly activities recommended by friends from your social network.”

“As more phones become GPS-enabled, more and more people are going to want these services,” Charlene Li, a noted analyst with Forrester Research, said to BusinessWeek. “People want information when and where they need it.”

Obviously applications such as Whrrl, Loopt, Beetaun, and LifeAware are just a start. There’s a great deal of work to be done before people accept location-based services, especially when it comes to adding friends (yet another service to get everybody involved in) and privacy and security. Business models for these programs have yet to be worked out.

But over time, as the open social movement takes root and unites social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter and trust is established between everybody involved, people will feel more comfortable using a service like Whrrl. And in the meantime, it doesn’t hurt that it now has the Kleiner Perkins seal of approval.

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Related Articles at last100:

• Weekly wrapup, 26-30 May 2008
• The real power of Google’s phone: connecting us to people, places, and things
• Loopt: a location aware mobile social network
• Nokia purchases Plazes, a location-based social networking service
• Google Latitude shows what’s wrong with Nokia’s social location (SoLo) strategy