Location and social were two of the most discussed tech topics of 2010. And Boston-based Skyhook Wireless is enabling developers to add geosocial features to their apps in only 3 lines of code, thanks to their Local Faves product.
“Adding location to any app makes it more interesting and engaging for the user, in turn driving viral growth of the app for the developers,” explained Ronda Billings Morra, Skyhook’s Director of Marketing. Skyhook is the leading provider of location positioning, context and intelligence worldwide. “We created Local Faves as an easy way for developers to add geosocial features to their apps.”
For showing off just how easy they make developers lives as well as what their technology makes possible, the company has created a few of their own apps. One of these is the iSwig iPhone app, a “cocktail travel journal” that allows you to keep track and share what and where you’re drinking.
They just released an update to the app, and along the way shared some fun data from users on what people are drinking in Boston and across the world. Did you ever wonder if people prefer Harpoon or Sam Adams more?
What, where and when people are drinking in Boston
Harpoon and Sam Adams are both based around the Boston area, but which do people in Boston actually prefer? According to Skyhook, Harpoon reigns supreme — by a multiple of almost two.
How does Boston’s busiest drinking hours compare to San Francisco? We get our buzzes on a lot later. The top three busiest drinking hours in Boston are midnight, 1AM and 11PM. For San Fran, 5PM, 8PM and 2PM.
To the right is a heat map of where people are drinking in the greater Boston area. Apparently, downtown Needham is a hot spot.
Other fun drinking data Skyhook pulled from iSwig use across the globe:
- The most popular drink on a month-to-month basis in the last 6 months: Pale Ale – IPA in July, Margarita in August and September, Bundaberg Rum in October, Shiraz in November, and Bailey’s Irish Cream last month.
- The most preferred drink in Los Angeles is Stella Artois, compared Sapporo in Tokyo
- Beer drinkers have out-swigged the wine drinkers by a ratio of more than 3:1
Skyhook’s Local Faves SDK and More
Several apps already use Local Faves, including Musik Monkey which finds music based on location, the geosocial golf app Caddy, Euro Radio which identifies top radio stations in different regions, and the social music app Sharetunes.
Skyhook is most well known for their Core Engine, the fastest, most accurate and flexible location system on the market today. It is based off their Wi-Fi Positioning System, launched in 2003, which offers a hybrid technology that combines the signals from GPS, WPS, and cellular towers to provide accurate location data. Skyhook’s Wi-fi positioning is based on a network of 220 million wi-fi access points (indoors and out), providing accuracy at 20 to 30 meters in under 1 second.
You can read more about Skyhook’s powerful location technology on their website, or in this Q&A interview we had with their VP of Marketing Kate Imbach back in August.
