During the process of working on my site, theSUGGESTR.com, I've come to believe that one of the next big things in websites is making applications location aware. This is primarily useful for mobile devices but also can be useful in desktops. Sites should be able to make themselves more intuitive and relevants if they can know a user's location.

There are multiple technologies behind determining ones location. The most accurate is GPS, however that requires that you have a GPS enabled device which only some currently are. Also from a web browser, by default, you do not have access to the GPS information. Cell tower information is also very useful as is IP resolving. All have pro's and con's and I'm not going to dive too much into the details.

For most of us we are looking for tools that make dealing with this information easier, basically we want to ask "Where are you?". Here are some tools I've found useful/interesting so far.  As I mentioned my hub about web 3.0 - I think that location based applications may be one of the drivers of web 3.0. 

Brought to you by Yahoo - FireEagle actually doesn't determine where you are but it acts as a broadcasting tool.  Basically an API exists to tell FireEagle where you are and another to ask FireEagle where the last update was from.  This allows you to notify ONE place (FireEagle) about your location and all FireEagle enabled applications will be able to use that information.  This concept is nice in that you can install a tracker application that continually updates FireEagle and then enabled websites will know your location without having to interface with your GPS, cell phone signal, etc.  The API is relatively easy to use and uses oAUTH.

Another neat concept is Open CellID.  Basically it is a database that translates cell phone signal information to coordinates.  The data in the database is contributed by people.  My experience shows that the data is pretty sparse in the US but in general this concept will make it possible to make location aware applications on phones without GPS.

Geode is a mozilla project that will allow FireFox to pass along location information in it's HTTP requests.  This will make location based coding very easy for developers.  I personally haven't used it yet and welcome any feedback on the functionality. 

Loki is a browser plugin that determines your location and make the information easily available to webites.  They are being used by a number of sites.  Again, I don't have first hand experience yet but if I do I'll update this hub.