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WHERE…Elsewhere…Official Press Release Time Amigos!

Tyler Knott Gregson | May 30, 2007

Hi, howdy, aloha, hola and hello good friends. From time to time on this humble abode we’ll be posting, for your viewing pleasure of course, some official press releases that are exciting, pertinent and yes, sometimes both, to WHERE. Today, my cyber-friends, colleagues and countrymen/women, is one of those aforementioned days.

Head over here if you want to see the WHERE press release at its original location, but for now, take a gander at it here…I’ll save you a jump:

WHEREâ„¢ Enhances Mobile GPS Widget Platform with GeoRSS and KML Support

uLocate’s WHERE Expands Depth of Content with Local Content in KML and GeoRSS Formats

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–uLocate Communications, Inc., an award-winning publisher of wireless location-based services (LBS), today announced support for GeoRSS and KML to bring worldwide content to the WHERE mobile application. WHERE now provides easy tools to add KML and GeoRSS from Mapufacture to the phone. Mobile phone users will be able to view thousands of location feeds including local news wire stories, user-generated travel guides, local blogs, restaurant reviews, and virtual location notes.

GeoRSS and KML content is available from thousands of websites and content providers. By creating interoperability with these existing formats, WHERE continues to lower the complexity and time associated with launching GPS-based mobile applications. Developers interested in building applications with GeoRSS or KML support can easily create them using the developer tools, documentation and samples available through the WHERE Developer Program at www.where.com/create.

Mapufacture’s GeoRSS: Location Feeds from Across the Internet

GeoRSS is a format for geographic information that helps convert local information on Internet websites into useful local content on the phone. For example, a breaking news story in a local town can be displayed on a map according to the location where the event occurred, allowing people to keep a finger on the pulse of what’s happening in their neighborhood from their phone. The Mapufacture GeoRSS widget allows WHERE users to access the location information from thousands of websites across the Internet in real-time.

KML: Managing Your Location Content

Keyhole Markup Language (KML) is a geographic format for location content that is widely used by geographic tools such as Google Earth and Google MyMaps. WHERE KML widgets allow mobile phone users to easily view the location content from the large and growing KML community, as well as build their own customized maps for viewing on the phone. For example, WHERE KML widget users can access the physical locations for major league and minor league baseball fields, allowing baseball enthusiasts to easily identify and map the nearest ballpark when traveling.

“We continue to improve the WHERE platform in anticipation of market trends and needs. Our developer community asked for GeoRSS and KML support to make it easier to bring GPS widgets to market,� said Walt Doyle, CEO and President of uLocate. “GeoRSS and KML enhance thousands of location-based services on the Web. The integration of those standards in the mobile environment on WHERE provides developers with increased platform flexibility to build compelling content and applications.�

WHERE users and developers interested in GeoRSS and KML can find more information at http://www.where.com/create.

About WHERE

WHERE leverages the same GPS-based technology underpinning MapQuest Find Me, Helio Buddy Beacon and other popular mobile applications. The platform uses simple, yet powerful WHERE mark-up language and scripting to allow developers to write in their preferred development language and assemble applications on mobile handsets. As a result, consumers have a wealth of content to choose from, effectively personalizing their mobile GPS experience to find the people, places and things that matter to them. More information can be found at www.where.com.

About uLocate

uLocate Communications, Inc. (www.ulocate.com) is a privately held, venture-backed leader in location-based services headquartered in Framingham, Mass.

About Mapufacture

More information about Mapufacture is available at http://www.mapufacture.com.

Happy Memorial Day from WHERE

Tyler Knott Gregson | May 28, 2007

We at WHERE want to take a short break and just wish everyone a very Happy Memorial Day!

In lieu of GPS widgets, ideas about developing new widgets or rants on the benefits of having such amazing tools at your fingertips, today we just want to wish everyone a very Happy Memorial Day and ask that you keep all of the service-men and women that are defending our country in your thoughts, prayers, wishes and hopes.

They follow orders to keep us safe, the least we can do is give them our respect and take a day out to say Thank You!

Finally, A Company That Doesn’t Screw You Over

Tyler Knott Gregson | May 25, 2007

I don’t know if any of you, are anything at all like me. For your sakes, in most ways, I’m going to go ahead and hope you’re not. In other regards, I’m gonna go ahead and hope you are. In this one particular way, I’m almost positive you are…you hate being screwed over by companies. Yep, I hate it, it’s one of my biggest pet peeves ever.

Why do I love WHERE, you might ask? How about this: for $2.99 you get “all-you-can-eat” WHERE widgets. ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT friends. Look at this priceless little gem I just found on our FAQ page:

Q. Do I get all the widgets for $2.99 or do I buy them individually?
A. It’s all you can eat widgets for $2.99. So, out of the current 20 widgets, for your $2.99, you get all 20 widgets. You don’t need to have them all, but rest assured, if you want ‘em, they’re there for the taking. As we add widgets, you can then add those widgets and still only pay $2.99. When we have 500 widgets, $2.99 gets you all 500, though, if you have them all, it might take you a while to find what you want.”

Now, answer me this, how many other companies can you think of that do that? Yeah, not many. In a day and age where it’s altogether too easy to charge a lot and deliver a little, it’s wildly refreshing to have someone charge a little and deliver a whole heck of a lot. Perhaps this trend will spread nation-wide to other companies…nah, no chance.

GigaOM Gives Much Appreciated Shoutout to WHERE

Tyler Knott Gregson | May 23, 2007

First off, a big huge congratulations go out to the new addition to the WHERE team.  I’m still getting warmed up and meeting everyone, but the simple fact that a healthy baby was born is reason enough for me to be excited.  So, Congrats!

Now, something that we in the biz love just as much as rave reviews, is the addition onto any sort of Top list; I don’t care if it’s Top 100, Top 50, Top 20, Top 10, or Top 5, if a product you love and stand behind makes that Top list, you’re happy.  So, I’m happy.  I just read over at GigaOM that WHERE’s GPS Twitter Widget made that randomized list for being one of the best new ways to make Twitter even more user-friendly, even cooler, and with GPS being added to it, even more Useful.

Head over and check out the article for even more Twitter-goodness then head back over to WHERE to test run the Twitter Widget yourself.  You’ll be amazed how much more fun it is to Twit when it’s GPS tagged.  Trust me.

Babies and stuff.

Eric |

More than a few of us have small children on the WHERE team. Today we add one more.

Last night our lead tech guy welcomed his first to the world. Congratulations to new daddy and mommy! Welcome to the team, little guy!

Good times are ahead. Good, sleepy times.

A First-Timer’s First Impressions

Tyler Knott Gregson | May 21, 2007

Wow.  How’s that for a first impression.  Just this past Friday I officially walked through WHERE on the Samsung m610, the phone I was told this platform was developed on; I think I honestly said the word “Wow” about 49 times during that hour long demonstration.  I’ll say it one more time, just for good measure…Wow.

Think of me as your humble, bumbling host that’s going to be experiencing all there is to explore with WHERE and all of the nifty widgets that accompany it.  The first thing I noticed when firing up WHERE for the first time was just how SMOOTH it is.  It’s an oddly addicting and oddly enjoyable experience watching the new widget slide onto your mock-up phone on the where.com, only to see it slide into the screen of your REAL phone moments later.

I’ll be talking about a lot of the widgets in the next few days/weeks and I assure you I’ll go into the nitty gritty details of each one, but for now just let me introduce myself and let you know just how excited I am for a product that can actually deliver on it’s claim to make your life easier.

Welcome to WHERE.

Funding News

Walt | May 17, 2007

I am pleased to announce that we have closed an $11M round of funding. We aim to use this new capital to continue to build the best product platform in the mobile LBS space. Further, we will use the funding to build a world class developer network, inviting in developers worldwide to build their applications on our platform and delight consumers at the same time.

Whether you are a carrier, a consumer or a content owner/developer, we look forward to working with you to deliver a mobile LBS experience second to none. You can read our press release at www.ulocate.com/5-16-07.php

New stuff at WHERE

Matt | May 7, 2007

There have been a lot of things keeping us busy lately, so here’s a rundown of some of our new WHERE features….

New widgets have been coming online.
NearBio provides local BioDiesel fueling stations.
ThinAir tells the current air quality including ozone, particulates, sulfur dioxide, and CO2.
Airport/Flights gives flight arrival and departure times and important local information near the airport (where to gas up your rental car, for example) — something I’m always looking for.

We also have new resources for developers. There’s a new reference guide for building your widget, more information about emulators, tips on proximity searching, and a newsgroup to ask questions of our technical team.

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