Just because operators in Europe are reluctant to get into location-based services and their cousins in the US are dragging their heels over implementing Directive 911, doesn’t mean that the rest of us have given up on LBS.

Pasta and Vinegar reports that The University of Southern California has launched a Location-Based Mobile Media Course, for students who want to find out more about this area and who may well be the true visionaries of what LBS can deliver in the future.

The course, led by Julian Bleecker (pictured) promises to be pretty hands-on, requiring students to "design and develop a project that addresses the opportunities
presented by locative mobile and pervasive media concepts". I’m sure that they’ll do better than the current rash of kid and employee tracking. Yawn.

One of the course papers is worth a read if you’re into this area - The
Geospatial Web: A Call to Action. What We Still Need to Build for an Insanely
Cool Open Geospatial Web by Mike Liebhold. In this, Mike explains the true vision of what this is all about:

We’ll be able to view and utilize tags, pages, and
graphic data about places far richer than the current yellow pages and
commercial POIs (points of interest): environmental details; live, in-place
cultural information, entertainment, and games; history, mythology, and social
information about people nearby; geodemographics; micro-local commercial
information; safety information based on data about health, accidents, and
crime; political data, facilities details, and local public services; physical
objects’ material composition and origins; links to manufacturers’ sites and
help desks; instructions on uses; stories about prior use; user annotations;
digital graffiti; user-created art; and location-tagged messages.

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

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var _hbEC=0,_hbE=new Array;function _hbEvent(a,b){b=_hbE[_hbEC++]=new Object();b._N=a;b._C=0;return b;}
var hbx=_hbEvent(”pv”);hbx.vpc=”HBX0100u”;hbx.gn=”ehg-oreilly.hitbox.com”;

var jlw = “JLW: www.oreillynet.com,/a/network/2005/05/10/geospatialweb.html”;

hbx.acct=”DM52040214SV;DM520404M4ZR”; //ACCOUNT NUMBER(S)
hbx.pn=”The+Geospatial+Web-++A+Call+to+Action”; //PAGE NAME(S)
hbx.mlc=”/a/network/2005/05/10/;/OReilly+Network/a/network/2005/05/10/”; //MULTI-LEVEL CONTENT CATEGORY
hbx.pndef=”title”; //DEFAULT PAGE NAME
hbx.ctdef=”full”; //DEFAULT CONTENT CATEGORY

hbx.lt=”auto”; //LINK TRACKING
hbx.dlf=”n”; //DOWNLOAD FILTER
hbx.dft=”n”; //DOWNLOAD FILE NAMING
hbx.elf=”n”; //EXIT LINK FILTER

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hbx.fnl=”"; //FUNNELS

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var _hbEC=0,_hbE=new Array;function _hbEvent(a,b){b=_hbE[_hbEC++]=new Object();b._N=a;b._C=0;return b;}
var hbx=_hbEvent(”pv”);hbx.vpc=”HBX0100u”;hbx.gn=”ehg-oreilly.hitbox.com”;

var jlw = “JLW: www.oreillynet.com,/a/network/2005/05/10/geospatialweb.html”;

hbx.acct=”DM52040214SV;DM520404M4ZR”; //ACCOUNT NUMBER(S)
hbx.pn=”The+Geospatial+Web-++A+Call+to+Action”; //PAGE NAME(S)
hbx.mlc=”/a/network/2005/05/10/;/OReilly+Network/a/network/2005/05/10/”; //MULTI-LEVEL CONTENT CATEGORY
hbx.pndef=”title”; //DEFAULT PAGE NAME
hbx.ctdef=”full”; //DEFAULT CONTENT CATEGORY

hbx.lt=”auto”; //LINK TRACKING
hbx.dlf=”n”; //DOWNLOAD FILTER
hbx.dft=”n”; //DOWNLOAD FILE NAMING
hbx.elf=”n”; //EXIT LINK FILTER

//SEGMENTS AND FUNNELS
hbx.seg=”"; //VISITOR SEGMENTATION
hbx.fnl=”"; //FUNNELS

//CAMPAIGNS
hbx.cmp=”"; //CAMPAIGN ID
hbx.cmpn=”CMP”; //CAMPAIGN ID IN QUERY
hbx.hra=”"; //RESPONSE ATTRIBUTE
hbx.hqsr=”"; //RESPONSE ATTRIBUTE IN REFERRAL QUERY
hbx.hqsp=”"; //RESPONSE ATTRIBUTE IN QUERY
hbx.hlt=”"; //LEAD TRACKING
hbx.hla=”"; //LEAD ATTRIBUTE
hbx.gp=”"; //CAMPAIGN GOAL
hbx.gpn=”"; //CAMPAIGN GOAL IN QUERY
hbx.hcn=”"; //CONVERSION ATTRIBUTE
hbx.hcv=”"; //CONVERSION VALUE
hbx.cp=”null”; //LEGACY CAMPAIGN
hbx.cpd=”"; //CAMPAIGN DOMAIN

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hbx.hc1=”";//CUSTOM 1
hbx.hc2=”";//CUSTOM 2
hbx.hc3=”";//CUSTOM 3
hbx.hc4=”";//CUSTOM 4
hbx.pec=”";//ERROR CODES