Skyhook Brings One-Click Location to Publishers

As I’ve written many times in the past, as location on the PC becomes more precise lots of interesting things happen for both users and advertisers. This is something I’ve also been talking to Skyhook Wireless CEO Ted Morgan for about three years.

Skyhook’s location awareness technologies (triangulation) are in many mobile devices now, but also in Mozilla’s Geode plug-in and, of course, the Skyhook PC Loki toolbar. Now the company has teamed up with an impressive list of publishers to bring “one-click” location to their sites. Among them:

* AllMenus.com (www.allmenus.com)
* BrightKite (www.brightkite.com)
* CitySquares (www.citysquares.com)
* Flickr (www.flickr.com)
* Krillion (www.krillion.com)
* Loopt (www.loopt.com)
* MapQuest (www.mapquest.com)
* NearbyNow (www.nearbynow.com)
* Outside.in (www.outside.in)
* Praized (www.praized.com)
* RedPlum (www.redplum.com)
* TheFind (www.thefind.com)
* WeatherBug (www.weatherbug.com)

Here’s what it looks like on WeatherBug:

It’s to the right of the location box on the nav bar at the top of the page:

If you’ve already got the Loki plug in, clicking will immediately takes you to a localized version of the page:

If you haven’t got the plug-in it prompts you to download it.

Once the plug-in is downloaded you’ll simply have to click the “Locate Me” link/button on the other participating sites to enable the triangulation. Many of these sites above already ask users to input location manually. So what does this bring to them? Its faster and theoretically offers a better user experience. MapQuest told me yesterday that in some cases people neglect to input a location in the where box. (Google recently added location/triangulation to its PC toolbar.)

Beyond the ability to localize a version of the site, there’s also the ability to do a better job of geo-targeting ads. This offers more precision than current IP-based geotargeting (down to the neighborhood level if desired). For example, the Volvo ad in the screenshot above could mention a local dealership or other relevant local information. The advertising dimension of this, however, is not going live with the “Locate Me” button. That will come later.

This development is a big deal and part of this broader trend toward greater location precision on the PC, as well as in mobile (which we all know about already).

Some folks are just starting to get a sense of the potential here — location is about more than pizza and plumbers, it’s also about brands — and how location will become more and more central to the user experience and online marketing.

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