ReadWriteWeb

In preparation for the upcoming ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit, we're outlining the 10 leading trends of the Mobile Web in a 3-part series of posts. In Part 1 we explored 3 important design and development issues for the Mobile Web. Now in Part 2, we look at 4 classes of mobile applications that have become popular in 2010: geo-location, Internet of Things, Augmented Reality, and mobile social networking.

We'll explore these and other trends with you at the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit, a 1-day event we're running on Friday 7 May, in Mountain View, California. That's the day after Web 2.0 Expo (2-6 May), so we hope you'll extend your trip to the West Coast to help us define the future of mobile! To be certain of getting a ticket, we invite you to register now.

Xtify's recently launched geo-messaging platform is demonstrated in a new YouTube video created by Motorola, makers of popular Android devices like the Motorola Droid smartphone. The Xtify geo-location platform and its associated SDK (software development kit) was announced at February's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. With the SDK, developers can integrate geo-targeted messaging into their applications, starting with Google's Android mobile operating system and later arriving to the Blackberry, Symbian, Windows Mobile and iPhone operating systems.

Prepare for your mobile apps to get a lot more pushy.

The current generation of check-in based location apps like Foursquare and Gowalla are more or less focused on the gaming aspects of location-based social networking. CauseWorld for the iPhone and Android, however, wants to use location based check-ins for two things: connect you to the stores around you and allow you to use the points you get for checking in to support a variety of charitable causes. CauseWorld features badges and other virtual rewards, but the main focus of the app is on collecting "karma points" that can then be exchanged for donations to participating charities.

It used to be you might need a huge thumb, like Sissy Hankshaw, to be a master of the roadways. Then, along came Craigslist's rideshare board, making it even easier to get around the world sans car.

Today, Flinc has debuted at the DEMO conference in hopes of forever changing the lives of leather tramps and hitchhikers, or even the car-less simply looking for a lift, worldwide.

Opera Software, developers of web browser technology for PC, Mac, Linux and mobile, have just announced that their Opera "widgets" will now work on nearly any mobile phone. The widgets in question are small mini-applications that can run in Opera's web browser itself, on the desktop as standalone apps and now, as standalone apps on mobile phones, too.

Built with standards like HTML, CSS and JavaScript, the widgets are easy for web developers to create since they don't require knowing a vendor-specific technology in order to do so.

Is there any business Google doesn't want to be in? Despite the fact that there are already plenty of excellent mobile shopping applications for the Android smartphone operating system, Google has decided to launch their own. Via an announcement on the Google Mobile blog, we're introduced to the search giant's latest creation: Google Shopper. If you're at all familiar with mobile shopping applications, then you can probably guess what this app does. It scans barcodes and retrieves prices. It can also find product information using photos snapped with your phone's camera. You can do voice searches, too. Apparently, Google didn't want to make just another mobile shopping app, they wanted to make a better one. 

Welcome to the weekend, friends - and what a week it's been. Facebook announced a huge open-source code dump; Social Media Week kicked off in six cities around the world; and the tech world was constantly humming with news and opinions about the iPad.

Frankly, we're exhausted.

One topic that's been top-of-mind at RWW, though, week in and week out, has been location-aware apps and technologies. We're so excited about these kinds of technology that our next premium report is going to center around a lot of geo-based tech! More on that later. For now, fill up your iPod with these three podcasts on location-aware tech, and have a relaxing, informative weekend.

Foursquare and Bravo announced a partnership today that will attempt to link Foursquare's users with viewers of Bravo. New features will offer badges and special prizes when Foursquare users check in at locations featured in Bravo TV shows.

The partnership is likely an attempt by Foursquare to fend off competitors in a space it once held as its own but that has become increasingly crowded as of late.

HipLogic is a new real-time, web-based platform intended as an alternative user interface for some mobile phones. Launching today, this free download currently delivers applications like Facebook, news, and Twitter to both Windows Mobile and Symbian devices with plans to offer an Android version of their software sometime in the future. Although both Microsoft and Nokia have their own mobile application stores, Hiplogic claims to provide a better, "more iPhone-like" experience than what's currently available.

Echoecho is a location-based mobile application that wants to make it easier for you to locate your friends, family members and colleagues in the real world. Echoecho only tries to get you to answer one straightforward question: Where are you? Unlike other location-based application, echoecho doesn't force you to constantly broadcast your own location. Instead, the application takes the opposite route. Instead of telling people where you are, you ask others where they are. You could use echoecho to check where your children are, for example, or simply to meet up with your friend without having to give a long and complicated description of where exactly they can find you.