WHERE and AT&T have teamed up to bring you the WHERE Zone contest. We not only want to make it easier for you to navigate your daily life, we also want to give you a chance to win $100! The contest will run from November 15th - December 15th and throughout this period there will be 31 chances to win $100.

How It Works

Each day, an AT&T subscriber using the designated widget of the day will be randomly selected.

If you are selected, a page will appear within the WHERE application notifying you that you’ve won, and providing instructions on how to collect your prize.

Click Here to see the designated widgets of the day. If you see any widgets you don’t recognize, click here for more details.

For the contest rules, please click here.

Attention Golfers! Golf.com is now live on WHERE. Whether you are teeing off in your local area or on the road for business, WHERE can now help you find local golf information. Golf.com is the leading provider of course information, tournament coverage, instruction resources and equipment. Use this widget on your phone to find the closest golf courses, call to make a tee time, map the location, and get directions on how to get there.

Golf.com is available on several carriers including  AT&T, Sprint Alltel, MetroPCS and on the BlackBerry Smartphone. Download it today!

Want to see how people are using WHERE? Check out WHERE Vision. WHERE Vision is a map centric view displaying location and usage of the WHERE mobile application on a globe in real time. With WHERE Vision you can peek into what WHERE users across the country are searching for, whether it be, Starbucks, Yelp and Local Search. (Warning: It’s pretty addicting)

How do you get yourself on the WHERE Vision Globe? Just use WHERE!
Open up your WHERE cell phone application, activate your favorite widget whether it be Buddy Beacon, Starbucks locator, or Gas Buddy. Once activated your session should appear on the WHERE Vision Globe within a minute or two depending on the current usage. Pretty cool right? Share WHERE Vision with your friends.

WHERE on Wikipedia

In the coming weeks, WHERE will be developing a new blog revealing some of the juicy bits of information we have about location based services, such as age, gender, city and other relevant demographics. As one of the leaders in the LBS circuit we feel strongly about sharing our information with others and providing commentary on the findings. The new blog is due out in the next couple weeks, but that won’t stop us from  teasing you with some of the preliminary data we’ve been researching.

Here are the top 5 cities using location based services:
1. Los Angeles
2. New York
3. San Francisco
4. Chicago
5. Dallas - Fort Worth

While the city data is not all that surprising, the searches and usage coming out of those areas are very interesting. Stay tuned to this blog to find out more about location based services demographics.

Photo Credit: Tyra’75 via Flickr

Today is a VERY big day for Americans, not only is it election day but it is also the first day the Blackberry Bold will be available in stores. One would think that while a new smartphone is not necessarily a priority over the elections,  the answers on this Crackberry Forum post,  “Vote or Bold First?” would cause one to reconsider. When asked whether they will be Voting or Getting a Bold first, the Blackberry Crackberry enthusiasts answer with a resounding “Get a Bold”. They don’t call it Crackberry for nothing! To their credit, most do plan to get out and vote today, but just not taking the chance on missing out on the much hyped Blackberry Bold!

Which will you do today? Vote First? or Get A Bold? Leave us a comment and you just might get what you voted for!

Tomorrow is November 4th, 2008. Voting Day. It is history in the making and we encourage you to vote, get out there and let your voice be heard.

Starbucks has announced that it will be giving away free coffee to anyone who votes. Tomorrow when you are out at your local polling station, all you have to do is use the WHERE cell phone application to find the closest Starbucks, tell them you voted (it’s an honor system, folks!) and Starbucks will give you a FREE tall cup of coffee.

Go Vote. Use WHERE. Get FREE Starbucks.

Update: Lifehacker has a full list of FREEBIES available to voters! Check it out here.

The November 4th release of the Blackberry Bold is days away! We here are WHERE are very excited to be bringing our location based application to Blackberry Bold Users. The Bold’s new features have created a stir amongst the Blackberry enthusiasts and preliminary reviews confirm that the Bold is worthy of it’s fanfare. Here is what some of the top Gadget blogs are saying about the Blackberry Bold 9000:

Engadget : Oh, and yes, everything you’ve heard about the display is true — it’s insanely crisp, bright, and easy on the eyes.

CNET: Frustrated with the delays and wooed by other new smartphone releases, we moved on (and so did many of you) and nearly gave up on the Bold. However, now that we finally have it hand, the love affair has begun all over again.

Boy Genius Report: This is the device every single BlackBerry user has been waiting for. Finally a BlackBerry that “has it all.” 3G, GPS, Wi-Fi, QWERTY keyboard, camera, great screen, clean styling, and more.

Gizmodo: the Bold doesn’t redefine the BlackBerry experience, but it does elevate to the highest point its ever been.

APCMag: this is the slickest-looking BlackBerry ever

Blackberry Cool: No member of the BlackBerry Nation will be able to pick this device up and then willingly put it down in favor of their older model; non-BlackBerry users should take the opportunity to see what all the fuss is about.

PCWorld: RIM has vastly improved this BlackBerry’s call quality — conversations are loud, crisp and clear and the speakerphone, in particular, is excellent compared to previous models.

With an estimated revenue generation of over 3.3 billion dollars by 2013, location based social networking has become the juggernaut in the vast landscape of friend finding. Despite being listed as one of the “15 Hot New Technologies that will Change Everything”, by PC World, LBS is still met with hesitation. Even the savviest of social networkers are unsure of their feelings about sharing location. The biggest concern seems to be regarding privacy issues. While privacy is a huge concern to the individual user, it’s an even bigger concern to the developers of location based social networking. The goal of LBS services is to provide a way to keep your friends and family up to date in a safe, secure manner.

I’m sure you can remember a time when giving out your email address, using a credit card online, and distributing photos of your children on photo sharing sites was done with great hesitation. However, through mass adoption and availability these services became more main stream and less scary. I expect that we will see this trend in location based social networking. The PC World article agrees stating,

“LBS is growing fast. The only thing holding it back is the slow uptake of GPS-enabled phones (and carriers’ steep fees to activate the function). But with iPhones selling like Ben & Jerry’s in July, that’s not much of a hurdle to overcome. Expect to see massive adoption of these technologies in 2009 and 2010.”

In this next section we’ll explore some of the most popular misconceptions about location based services and a few of the concerns we have heard here at WHERE.

1. Location updates are automatic: WHERE’s Buddy Beacon does not automatically update your location as you move. Your friends, family or questionable accquaintance will NOT be able to track every step you take. The only locations shared with friends are the ones you choose to share. For example: You are at a Madonna concert in Boston and feel the need to brag to all your friends about the amazing set Her Madgesty is delivering. You would open up the application, set your status to “Rocking out to Madonna”, the phone would locate you and voila. Your status and location is now available to your network. That status and location will stay there until the next time you choose to update it.

2. Anyone can see where you are: Not true. Location based social networking tends to be a little more intimate, so you can choose to invite and accept buddy requests from those whom you trust. Also users must have your phone number to invite you into their network. (Yet another reason NOT to give your number to that dude in the bar!)

3. Big Brother is Watching: WHERE does not track your every movement with the intention of selling that information or using it to score advertising. This has never been our policy and we stand firmly behind that position.

WHERE is simply a means of putting your people, your places and your thoughts in one place that is accessible to you and your close network of friends. If you have any questions regarding WHERE and it’s privacy issues, send them to support@ulocate.com

Photo Credit: Joe the WOP via Flickr

One of WHERE’s most popular GPS based widgets is the handy, Gas Buddy. Gas Buddy allows users to find the closest and cheapest gas options in their local area. When you have the WHERE application installed on your cell phone you are able to locate all gas stations in your area and compare prices, allowing you to find the best price for filling up! In the past several weeks, we’ve had a couple questions about how Gas Buddy information is derived and how often it is updated. Here’s a little intro into how Gas Buddy works and what you can do to keep the information as accurate as possible.

Here is how Gas Buddy works: GasBuddy web sites allow motorists to share information about low priced fuel with others as well as target the lowest priced stations to save money when filling up at the pumps!

What does this mean? Well it means, sometimes it may not always be up-to-the-minute accurate or maybe a gas station near you is not listed. What can you do about it? Get involved, register with the Gas Buddy website and document gas prices in your local area.

If you are an iPhone user you may have noticed some ads in the bottom of the WHERE application last week. We are testing out different ad formats and wanted to sincerely apologize to our users for the untargeted and clearly irrelevant ads. We received a few complaints and just wanted to take this opportunity to let you know we are listening. We’ve stopped the ads and are working with our advertising partners to deliver more relevant ads.

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