Recently I had lunch with Loopt’s CEO, Sam Altman, where he pulled out his iPhone and showed me a new version, called Loopt Star, that gives you incentives to visit major retailers. I talk with him about that in the video embedded on this post.
I’m working on a longer post about the location-based services that are out there and I’m getting tired of the data silos that are being built up here. I’d love to see someone take more of an integration approach and do that first before going after the monetization like Loopt is here, although I understand why Loopt is doing that.
That said, this is an interesting new entrant. Will it get me to check into it along with Foursquare? That’s the big question and I don’t see enough utility is here yet, but I’ll keep watching to see what the offers are like and whether that’s enough of a hook to get me.
There’s a ton of other reports about Loopt Star on Techmeme.
Scobleizer 
I think the adoption of geo location services is slow for mainstream because no one has an immediate thing to go do when they first try a service. I think a quick fix for this is for Foursquare and Gowalla to give brand new users a special on a place nearby to go try immediately. I say this because I am a Foursquare user but I downloaded Loopt Star today after watching this. I didn't play with it past 10 seconds because I wasn't going anywhere. If I had a quick reason to go somewhere (stimulated by an immediate coupon) I would have stuck around longer.
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Good points.I really don't understand why the location-based service providers aren't taking more advantage in the honeymoon period when everyone is trying them out, to really use, and share the data that they are hoarding.Foursquare is doing the hard bit right (getting people to check in, creating check-in locations, etc.) but why doesn't their website provide more ways to profile the data they are creating:- listings of top locations at a point in time or over time, in a given space (local, region, national, or global), rankings of my foursquare points by my Foursquare friends;- listings of top foursquare points people at a point in time or over time, in a given space (local, region, national, or global);- listings of most visited (most check-ins or one with most “repeat” check-ins by same people or most “shouted” or most “liked”, using the Facebook “like” buttons on pages) restaurants by type of food, etc.They have so much potential, and yet currently fans of these services tend to get bored after a certain time, and stop bothering to check-in.
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In retrospect, I just want to caveat my points slightly – I've been using Foursquare for Blackberry, as well as the Foursquare.com website (so I don't know whether other services, or other platforms are better). I'm also a big fan of Foursquare (mostly because I see so much potential).
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Robert-From what I understand, the buzz surrounding Loop used to be focused on promoting events. This is something that none of the major players in this space have adequately addressed, in my opinion. In fact, the Foursquare community seems to be vehemently against promoting events through FSq (evidence here: http://getsatisfaction.com/foursquare/topics/ev…).Robert, have you seen anything lately I might be missing? Because all I can see is a clear use case that's not being addressed in any sort of compelling way.
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What, no double-popped collar? I think it's cheap, too late, and blatantly stupid for Loopt to say “us too!” to Foursquare and Gowalla. They have lots of opportunities with “always-on” social geotagging, but I think they should start exploring B2B. Let the other networks go get users and figure out a business model later. Loopt could be generating revenue, like, right now. Dudes. Seriously.
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