Skyhook Wireless (News - Alert) is announcing that a series of new partners, representing a broad range of content and services, are leveraging Skyhook’s Loki Javascript API to deliver hyper-local content and services.

 

Loki's innovative geo-targeting capabilities are enabling companies such as Whrrl, Geocaching.com, Krillion, Yahoo! Fire Eagle, UpNext and CitySquares to serve, search for, and facilitate the creation of location relevant content. Now laptop and desktop Internet users, along with location-enabled mobile phones, can take advantage of location-based services.

 

“Accurate location information provides important context for web experiences; and Loki delivers location-awareness in a new and innovative way,” said Ryan Sarver, director of consumer products at Skyhook Wireless. “It’s exciting to see the location-aware web arriving across such a wide range of services.”

 

Loki is a creation of Skyhook Wireless and leverages the company’s ground-breaking Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) to deliver highly accurate location information through a web browser. With just a few lines of Javascript, Loki enables websites to easily incorporate precise location information into the user experience.

 

Whether trying to find a new flatscreen, hunting for location stamped “caches,” or trying to find and connect with your friends, Loki powers new experiences on the location-aware web. Ground-breaking companies have deployed the Loki Javascript API.

 

One company, Whrrl, a new social discovery service from Pelago, uses elements of social networking, local discovery and user-generated content to create a unique medium for finding and sharing local information with friend networks. Whrrl delivers real-time updates, reviews and locations of people, places and events in the physical world through both Web and mobile platform.

 

“It is crucial for us to deliver seamless location experiences - whether via mobile device or a laptop - and Loki allows us to do that through some very impressive geotargeting capabilities,” said Darren Vengroff, CTO and co-founder of Pelago.

 

Another company, Geocaching.com is the world’s largest geocache listing site with more than three million participants worldwide. “Loki allows us to deliver location-specific geocaching search results without a user needing to submit their location. This is just another way in which we can support our community, allowing geocachers access to information in a way that best serves them,” said Jeremy Irish, Groundspeak’s president and CEO.

 

Krillion Inc. is a premier provider of local shopping search information, serving today’s ready-to-buy consumers who research products online for purchase from retailers in their neighborhood. The company’s success comes from its ability to provide online shoppers with real-time, location-specific product availability information from major retailers in the U.S. 

 

“Loki's technology provides us with the ability to instantly locate the user who is researching products online, show them the closest retail outlets with the item in stock and, most importantly, provide instant directions from their exact location to the store,” said Joel Toledano, CEO and founder of Krillion.

 

Yahoo! Fire Eagle is the secure and stylish way to share your location with sites and services online, while CitySquares is a local company that brings together local businesses and their consumers to provide rich, hyper-local content for urban and suburban communities.

 

With its recent expansion, CitySquares’ footprint extends from Boston to the Route 128 belt and offers information on over 65,000 local businesses. UpNext is the new and exciting way to explore and discover your city in 3-D. Rather than sifting through pages and links of data, UpNext enables you to glide around your city, virtually.

 

Founded in 2003, Skyhook Wireless has pioneered the development of the first-ever metro-area positioning system that leverages Wi-Fi rather than satellites or cell towers to deliver precise location data supporting the growing market for location-based services. The Skyhook Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) requires no new hardware, works indoors and outdoors, provides an instant location and is more accurate than current technologies in congested downtown areas.