It's the first day of the last month of 2008, which leads me to do some looking back and a whole lot of looking forward. As 2008 comes to a close, it seems appropriate to reflect on a year of rapid growth in the mobile space we're a part of, both as a location based service in general and an iPhone application specifically. Just the thought of the hundreds of thousands (maybe even a few million?) of people receiving iPhones for Christmas has me giddy with excitement at what they'll discover and how they'll benefit from greater connectivity to the people in their lives.

The promise of LBS is finally becoming reality as applications like Whrrl become more widely known, accepted and used. We are proud that VentureBeat included us in an article about location based services to watch in 2009, along with Brightkite (social network), Navizon (wifi hotspot and cell tower location aggregator), Orbster (treasure hunting game), and Citysense (nightlife application).



Here's what Justin Davey at VentureBeat had to say about Whrrl:

Whrrl, a social discovery network developed by Pelago, not only lets you stay connected with friends, but also to discover places and events. Whrrl was the first iPhone application to receive an investment from Kleiner Perkins Caulfied & Byers’ iFund for iPhone developers. It has also received hefty sums from T-Mobile and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. So why am I bullish? Because chief executive and co-founder Jeff Holden was the senior vice president of online consumer services for Amazon.com prior to co-founding Pelago. He was one of the developers of Amazon’s prediction system that analyzes consumer behaviour, and, based on a user’s previous searches, delivers other products that may be of interest. In a chat with Holden, he told me he has the know-how to transfer this type of system to the Whrrl platform. Judging by Amazon’s success in delivering appropriate product matches to users — if you don’t know what I mean, try it out — Holden and his team could likely develop a similarly effective geo-targeted advertising platform for Whrrl. He didn’t disclose too much to me when I talked to him, so I’m not sure if this will roll out in 2009, but he did reveal the company will attempt to monetize the platform by selling virtual goods.

Our lips are sealed for now as to what we've got cooking for 2009, but the oven is hot and we can't wait to unveil our progress in our ongoing mission to bring together the web and the real world seamlessly, in realtime. For now, enjoy Whrrl and look for updates to the website in the near future (more about that will be posted here). Cheers!