In Seesmic's web interface, users can now simply hover their cursor over profile pictures and a menu will appear. This menu, among other things, allows Seesmic's users to add others to lists. One nice aspect of the web interface is that it auto-updates lists when new tweets come in. The desktop app - at least in the current version - doesn't do this and forces users to manually refresh lists to see updates.

Geolocation

In addition to supporting lists, the new version of the web client also supports Twitter's geolocation API. Seesmic users can't share their locations, but whenever a Twitter user broadcasts location data, a little pin will appear underneath the profile picture, and hovering over this pin will bring up a map. Only a few users actually have the ability to broadcast their locations at this point. Twitter is only giving platform developers access to this feature for now, but it should soon become a standard feature in mobile clients like Tweetie 2 and Twitterrific.

Of course we know we're not supposed to be speeding in the first place, but a little heads up never hurt anyone. Besides, who can afford a ticket these days?

The app doesn't just run on iPhones, though. It also runs on navigation devices like Garmin, TomTom, and Dash Express as well as on all sorts of mobile devices including Blackberry, Nokia s60 and n95, Windows Mobile, and other Java/J2ME devices. Although you may have heard about Trapster before, the iPhone application was only approved for inclusion in the iTunes App Store this week. It is now available for download to the iPhone.

How It Works

Using Trapster is easy. Speed traps are reported by the app's community of users either by pressing a button on the phone or device to add a marker or by calling a toll-free number. When reporting a speed trap, you specify whether they are live police traps (where police are hiding with radar or laser guns), red light cameras, speed cameras, or just typical police hiding spots.

As you approach the reported traps, the app will alert you to upcoming hotspots by way of audio alerts or, optionally, via text messages. To see the exact location of the trap, just click on the trap icon on the screen.

You can also set up and join Trusted Groups via the Trapster web site. These groups are private speed trap sharing communities where traps can be shared either publicly or privately. In an area where there are a lot of Trapster users submitting numerous alerts, using a Trusted Group could cut down on the noise as you can configure the app to only alert you of traps that the other members in your group have reported. They could also be used by a small group of friends, co-workers, or family members to just share traps that are relevant to them and their daily commutes.

How Accurate Are The Traps?

The beauty of Trapster is that is goes beyond being a simple reporting system. Measuring the accuracy of the speed traps is a function that has also been crowd-sourced to the user community. When you report a trap, others can rate that trap which makes your "karma score" go up. Based on the accuracy of the user ratings, traps are color-coded as green, yellow, or red, with red being the most certain.

Live Police Speed Traps Never Get Stale

The live speed traps on the service never get stale, either. The live traps will only live in the system for one hour after the last corroboration unless someone rates it or the user who reported it chooses to delete it. So, for example, if you reported a particular trap and no one else reported it after you, the trap would disappear after an hour. If 10 minutes later a second person reported it, the trap would continue to live in the system for another hour past the time of the second report. The confidence of the trap would also increase to "2." If, instead, a second user comes in behind you and puts in "I do not agree," the trap disappears. 

Is This...Legal?

According to Trapster's lawyers, the app is legal to use. Apparently, Apple must think so too since they've decided to allow it into their App Store. Some police even like the idea because it will get people to slow down. But really, for anyone who drives, it's hard to not like an app like Trapster. No tickets, no insurance increases, no worries. 

See a demo of Trapster or download the app here.

Nowhere is that more apparent than with GPS-enabled mobile platforms that use location-specific information to simplify the way people access and share content on a daily basis. Later today Mozilla will release Geode, a Firefox geolocation add-on which will enable localized content.

But where does that leave the typical laptop user? Mozilla Labs is working to answer that question.

In August, Mozilla announced the addition of support for geolocation information. In that announcement, Doug Turner said, "I would love to be able to get the UI support in Firefox. This would allow the 'extension' to be more or less the glue between a geolocation device and mozilla."

Tomorrow, Turner's wish may be coming true when Mozilla releases Geode, "a Firefox add-on that understands location, enabling enriched, personalized, and localized content."

VentureBeat has an early glimpse of Geode, but it is still "not entirely clear how it's pulling in the location data." Hopefully, the official announcement will shed more light on Geode.

Why Is Location Important for Relatively Static Users?

Clearly, geolocation information can improve the experience for mobile users, but why would this functionality be needed in the browser?

One answer jumps to mind: relevance.

Location-specific information is a passive—yet relevant—means of managing the growing complexity of the information on the Web. By enabling the dynamic localization of information in the browser, Mozilla may be helping users find truly relevant information, and in so doing, may make the Web an even more valuable resource.

Bit.ly, a new URL shortening service from the innovation network Betaworks, is launching today with a staggering feature set for both end users and forward-looking developers.

What Bit.ly Does Today

At launch Bit.ly is a relatively sophisticated URL shortener. It uses a cookie to remember the last 15 links you've shortened and displays that history on the home page when you visit. It allows you to set up a custom URL ending for your link. It automatically creates 3 thumbnails for every page you save a link to.

How about these features, though? Bit.ly saves a cached copy forever of every page you shorten a link to, on Amazon's S3 storage (processing is done on EC2, as well, so uptime looks good). Bit.ly also tracks clickthrough numbers and referrers so you can see what kind of traffic your shortcut got and from where. There's a simple API for adding Bit.ly functionality to any other web app (Betaworks affiliated gaming site ImInLikeWithYou already has this live) and all the data, including traffic data and thumbnails, is easily accessible by XML and JSON feeds.

Those are some pretty awesome features but that's only the beginning. A javascript submission bookmarklet and user accounts should be available soon. (Update: Bit.ly just added a simple bookmarklet that will make it easier to use casually.)

The Future of Bit.ly: Semantic and Geo Spatial Analysis

In the background, Bit.ly is analyzing all of the pages that its users create shortcuts to using the Open Calais semantic analysis API from Reuters! Calais is something we've written about extensively here. Bit.ly will use Calais to determine the general category and specific subjects of all the pages its users create shortcuts to. That information will be freely available to the developer community using XML and JSON APIs as well.

As if that's not a whole lot of awesome already - Bit.ly is also using the MetaCarta GeoParsing API to draw geolocation data out of all the web pages it collects.

You want to see all the web pages related to the US Presidential election, Barack Obama and Asheville, North Carolina? Or about Technology, Google and The Dalles, Oregon? That will be what Bit.ly delivers if it can build up a substantial database of pages. Once it does, it will open that data up to other developers as well.

Why use a URL shortener to catalog all those pages? Why not? Each shortcut signals a page that's of importance to a real human user and an army of link-senders sounds like a great way to build up that database. Semantic indexing of the web through casual but opt-in and common user activity is a great strategy.

Then we can all share access to that data. We're excited and we hope you'll put Bit.ly to use.