Blasterous.com is Hyper-Local and Private, Part 1

Posted: August 23rd, 2010 | Author: Steve | Filed under: social media | Tags: android, blasterous, blasterous.com, cigars, Collective, communications, facebook, foursquare, geolocation, hyper-local, iphone, local, location based | View Comments

While social media has generally been a force for good in our lives, especially for those getting the word out about sustainability, there has also been a downside: information overload. Sites like MySpace and Facebook try to be everything to everyone, and, in the process, leave us overwhelmed with a mountain of work to sift through that which is meaningful and relevant from that which is, well, frankly, meaningless drivel.

In order to keep control over our content, who sees it and when, we are left with complicated privacy settings, and the unhappy task of dividing our “friends” into categories which may not fit all cases.

Blasterous.com founder and CEO Tim Reeth hopes to change all that, at least as far as managing the communications you have with your genuine network of friends, family and neighbors.  To him, that means providing users better controls over organizing their connections into custom lists, which are 100% private, to those people in the list.

For example, I recently created a Blasterous list called “Sergeant Steve’s Cigar Pals,” and invited all my cigar buddies to it.  In this list, we talk about our favorite cigars, and share what’s going on with our cigar brands and cigar smoking, both local and world-wide.  Because Blasterous is so location centric, when we’re “blasting” about cigar lounges in another city, members local to that city will know exactly where we are talking about. With Blasterous Place pages, members can also find detailed info about the location, or link the location to a blast.

Currently in Beta, Blasterous, is a hyper-location-based social platform, available on the web or on the go; currently with an app for iPhone, and Android.  Users can share local and time sensitive information in the form of a “blast”; which, unlike Twitter’s 140, are 240 characters in length, can have up to 5 images per blast and contain hyperlinks.  Additionally, those with permission to view a blast are able to add their comments, thereby generating a stream of dialog.  What makes Blasterous truly unique, is that users have the choice whether to share blasts publicly, via their geographic location (“geos”), privately, via custom lists, or both.

10 Ways Geolocation is Changing the World.

Posted: July 27th, 2010 | Author: Max_Gladwell | Filed under: Technology | Tags: android, applications, blasterous, blockchalk, BP, causeworld, dehood, foursquare, geolocation, googlemaps, gowalla, greenopia, iphone, layar, LBS, locavore, mapquest, momentfeed, neighborgoods, oilreporter, oilspill, stickybits, Technology, trapster, waze | View Comments

This post was written by Rob Reed. He is the founder of MomentFeed, a location-based marketing, strategy, and technology firm.

Location technologies are transforming how we experience, navigate, and ultimately better our world. From the global to the local, here are #10Ways geolocation is a positive force for good.

Social media has changed the world. It has revolutionized communications on a global scale, and the transformation continues with every status update, blog post, and video stream. The global citizenry has become a global network.

Since becoming widely adopted just a couple years ago, social media has supercharged social action, cause marketing, and social entrepreneurship. Indeed, the true value hasn’t been the technology itself but how we’ve used it. Today, a second wave of innovation is defining a new era and setting the stage for change over the coming decade.

Mobile technologies will extend the global online network to anyone with a mobile device while enabling countless local networks to form in the real world. We’ve decentralized media production and distribution. We’re doing the same for energy. And we’ll continue this trend for social networking, social action, and commerce.

The combined forces of smartphones, mobile broadband, and location-aware applications will connect us in more meaningful ways to the people, organizations, events, information, and companies that matter most to us—namely, those within a physical proximity of where we live and where we are. Can location-based services (LBS) change the world? Here are #10Ways: