[guimarin]

I've always thought that the real money in mobile comes from very accurate map data, and very accurate personal position data. that way when you're walking around town, you can 'ask' your phone for directions to eat/shop/whatever, and it can give you a great recommendation ( for a price to local restaurants ). I asked Eric Schmidt if this was a powerful motivator behind the android acquisition, as at the time it seemed like a natural fit, and surprisingly he did not say no. And yes I know that Android was bought 'on a whim, gut instinct' but this is the perfect use case for it.

[7952]

This idea is just picking at low hanging fruit. It is like saying that the killer app of the web is retail shopping. Sure Amazon is cool, but the web is so much more than that. Perhaps "location" will be like the web and have millions of little niches. IMHO it won't really take off until you have higher smart phone penetration in the developing world. These kind of apps need a market with lots of pedestrians, not car bound America.

[Ineffable]

America is not the only country in the developed world. Plenty of smartphone wielding pedestrians here in Europe.