I don’t know if you’ve heard but there is an absolute flood of information concerning a pretty major shift that’s going down all over the cell phone world: cell phone service providers are FINALLY opening their doors to unlimited plans!

That’s right, Verizon kinda led the charge, but Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile look like they’re following suit, all ranging from $99 on up based on what you want. Rumor has it Sprint Access Pack, as it’s called, is $119.99 a month and includes unlimited voice, unlimited messaging, and web browsing. Wow, sweet steal of a deal.

That said, it’s no secret why this week’s WHERE Widget of the Week is none other than Sprint Stores. What it does, is beyond simple: it finds any and all Sprint stores that are around You at any given moment. With the new unlimited plans hitting the shelves, NOW is the time to get in there and load up!

30 minutes or less or your pie is FREE!  Remember those days?  Yeah, too long ago right?  How much does it frustrate you when you order a steaming hot pizza, you begin to salivate because you’re so hungry, and then an HOUR goes by and no sign of the pie?  Ugh.

Those days, my happy pizza eating friends, might be rapidly coming to a close as multiple Pizza companies are now adding GPS Live Tracking to your pizza delivery.  Imagine that, you’re sitting down, wonder where your pie is, and you just check a map online, updated every 15 seconds, and see exactly where your pizza is sitting.  Heck, if it takes too long, why not just ride out and meet the guy halfway?
According to the article I just read:

“For the stores where TrackMyPizza is available, about 18% of all delivery customers in the last 60 days have gone online to track their pizzas, even if they ordered by phone…Online orders are up 100% since the service started, and that’s a big advantage to a pizza shop. Not only does it save employees time answering the phone, online customers spend on average about $2 more with each order, since they can see the full menu.” 

Ahh, a perfect marriage of technology and food.  I love it.

Monday I wrote about some buzz taking place about Buddy Beacon’s extended functionality.  In it, I addressed some potential concern for the “big brother” type tracking that some people incorrectly believed could be taking place.  Today, on this happy Friday, I found another post that took place last week about people getting excited about Buddy Beacon, and truly seeing it going into mainstream use.  The “Wave of the future” as it were.

To be honest, I could not agree more.  The article mentions that,

“We believe that this sort of application will become very mainstream especially among younger users who have been raised with social networks, IM and near-constant connections to their friends. Interoperability is a key strategic feature of the application although it’s not on the two largest carriers, AT&T or Verizon at this point.” 

We agree and we can not Wait to see where we will all go from here.

I don’t know where you all are that just so happen to be reading this, and as such, I have no idea what kind of gas prices you’re facing.  I just know that where I live, it’s darn expensive, and pretty darn annoying.  Every time I fill up I wish all my wishes that I had some OTHER kind of fuel to be filling up on.  Some OTHER technology propelling my car forward.

Lucky for some of you out there, that dream is a reality and you DO fill up on other things besides good ol’ gasoline.  That said, for all you E85′ers out there, this WHERE Widget is just PERFECT for you.  The official description of the WHERE NearE85 Widget is this:   “Using this widget will allow you to see the nearest 5 retail E85 fuel pump locations with hours and payment options. NearE85 maintains the most comprehensive list of E85 fuel pumps in the US.”

Groovy.  Log in, add it, load it up and you’ll be buzzing along in no time at all.  The environment will thank you, while it’s busy slapping me around.

Listen up all you developers with great ideas out there, a new contest is rolling in!

If you’re a developer, you may want to consider entering the NAVTEQ APAC LBS Challenge. Judging will be held in Singapore, but developers from anywhere in the Asia Pacific region are encouraged to apply.

The NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge has a prize pool valued in the millions of dollars.

As usual, no phone is necessary if you build with WHERE. And you can use the WHERE phone emulator instead of the Nokia SDK/Emulator on N95.

Here are the dates to keep in mind:
* Fill out the quick registration form with NAVTEQ by March 7th
(http://developer.navteq.com/site/global/lbs_challenge/apac/home/p_apac_home.jsp)
* Build your entry with the WHERE Developer Program by March 28th
(http://developer.where.com)

Just wanted to do a quick post to show you other places that buzz for the Buddy Beacon’s extended functionality is taking place.  It always makes me happy to wake up and find people all around the country talking about things I am truly excited about.

One such post I just found over at TimTechs News and to be honest, they seemed a bit worried about this being a “big brother” type thing where we’re all being watched.   No worries friends, and someone has already placed a comment about just my sentiments!  Buddy Beacon is in no way a tracking application, and just as Markus commented, it only updates your location when you tell it to do so.  In no way is Buddy Beacon a lojack of the future, no no, it’s a tool to help you, and all your friends know where you are and where you’ll be whenever You feel like it!

Buddy Beacon is a rad tool, and I think the more people play with it, the more they’ll fall in love too.

Just found a pretty awesome little post over at ReadWriteWeb.com all about JotYou and the amazing little WHERE Widget that basically lets you wait to get an SMS message until you’re physically at our around a specific location.  How is this useful?  Simple really…say you are all out of milk and don’t want to forget to pick it up on the way home from work; using JotYou enables you to get an automatic text message when you are beginning to drive by the Grocery store, no more forgetting.

Head over and check out the pretty awesome article all about JotYou and get your fill of it’s life-simplifying goodness.  After you’re done, log back into your WHERE account and add JotYou to your list of WHERE Widgets.  Trust me, you won’t regret it.

I do not know exactly how to fully describe how insanely COOL I think it is when I see a map of the planet that actually Looks like it’s from space. Toss on top of that real-time night/day displays where you can actually see where it’s dark, see where it’s light. Yeah, rad. Now, add on top of that, real-time updating of people using WHERE and loving it, yeah, I’m hooked.

I don’t know why it’s so addictive, but whereVision is just that, addictive. I can’t stop watching people from all over ping the service and see what they are using, why they are using it, and just where they find themselves on this planet. Head over to WHERE.com and click up at the top where it says “whereVision” and witness the radness that is our planet, and those living on it.

Here’s a little screenshot to show you what you’re in store for, I don’t know why but I friggin’ dig it.