On Monday, Loopt demonstrated to the world its native iPhone application. Many reviews were notably bullish. We too touched on the benefits of location-based networking for Apple’s mobile fan club.
Loopt clearly understands this. The company, ahead of its July 11 debut along with the iPhone 3G, has now made available its free mobile services to current and prospective subscribers of four major U.S.-based wireless carriers - Alltel (which may eventually reside under Verizon parentage), AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile - for three of its most popular handsets: the Pearl (8110, 8130, 8310), the Curve (8310, 8330), and its World Edition business-minded device (8800, 8820, 8830). According to Loopt’s site copy, official support from Verizon itself is coming soon as well.
This news is undoubtedly appealing for the many millions of wireless Web consumers already well ingrained in the industry-leading BlackBerry email system, who at the same time have the ability to employ embedded or bridged GPS technology to maintain ties to a social network through location-based notifications. This is especially useful for those wireless subscribers based in urban settings that may wish to meet with one another but would, without something such as Loopt, not be privy to the relative proximity of those contacts.
Of course, as with many social services on the Web, Loopt allows a good deal more than finding friends’ placement on a digital map. Users can geo-tag photos, post comments to others’ uploads, as well as read and maintain mobile blogs.