Location Based Services (LBS) and Podcasting

A few weeks ago I mused about the possibilities of 'location based services' through podcasting and GPS. At the moment though only a tiny fraction of mobile handsets are GPS-enabled.

That's why this press release from seekerwireless.com in Australia caught my eye: "Seeker Wireless have developed capabilities that use existing GSM, CDMA and 3G handsets to enable the location of a mobile subscriber to be made available as an opt-in, permission based service to help drive the adoption of mobile marketing and mobile content offerings.(..) Key to the adoption of LBS services in Australia by Seeker Wireless is the use of an ‘opt-in’ model where a mobile phone user’s location is only made available with the user’s consent. This is easily achieved by sending an SMS, or updating the user’s website profile."

Based on the momentum of both developments, automated, subscription based A/V content distribution (Podcasting) will soon meet automated, location based services (LBS) for handsets. A very promising encounter.