Press:

1. Mobilebeat Review of Aloqa 2.0
2. Aloqa Finalist for 2010 Mobile Premier Awards (MWC)
3. Aloqa among top 10 Most Shared Android Apps on Facebook in 2009
4. Aloqa – An App For Love
5. Greg Sterling on Why Aloqa Beat Yelp on Android
6. Scoble’s Hot Startups to Watch in 2010
6a. Scoble in 2009
7. Featured by Microsoft in Windows Appstore
8. Recommended by Consumer Reports
9. TMobile’s Top Picks
10. Mobile Marketing and Motorola Award
11. VentureBeat Awards
12. Aloqa invited to Google I/O
13. TechCrunch
14. Aloqa API
15. 15 publishers on Aloqa

Aloqa Video Reviews:

1. Android Video Review
2. Android Review II
3. Android Review III
4. Windows Mobile Review
5. PocketPC Review
6. Droid Review

Aloqa Reviews:

1. Knowyourmobile.com
2. Pcwelt.de
3. Useful Android Apps
4. Readwriteweb
5. Local Mobile Web
6. Kelsey
7. Blackberry Review
8. Search Engine Watch
9. CIO Update – Top 5 Apps
10. Pocket PC Thailand
11. Android User Feedback

Interviews With Aloqa:

1. Robert Soble Interviews Aloqa Part I
2. Robert Scoble Interviews Aloqa Part II
3. Bambi Francisco Interviews Aloqa (Vator. TV 1)
4. Bambi Francisco Interviews Aloqa (Vator TV 2)
5. Bnet TV Interviews Aloqa
6. Atelier Tech Radar

October 16, 2009
Two for Aloqa in Smaato Awards
Flirtomatic, Waze and Aloqa were among the winners in the Smaato Mobile Advertising Awards 2009, which were announced yesterday evening in San Fransisco. The awards ceremony attracted more than 200 of the world’s leading mobile developers, entrepreneurs, venture capital professionals and Investors.
The winners were:

* Overall iPhone category winner: Waze
* Overall Mobile web category winner: Flirtomatic
* Overall Apps category winner: Aloqa
* Microsoft Phone category winner: SPB TV
* Motorola Android category winner: Aloqa

Smaato awarded the overall winners free travel to Barcelona and booth space at the Mobile World Congress 2010, as well as various opportunities for publicity. In addition, the winners of the Microsoft Phone Category and the Motorola Android Category will receive prizes from Microsoft and Motorola, while the overall winners, Flirtomatic, Aloqa and Waze, will be introduced to eight of the top VC’s in the industry, tapping into their knowledge and networks. All 15 Finalists received deviceatlas licenses sponsored by dotMobi. As a special prize, a free booth at MDAYS 2010 was awarded to Flirtomatic and Yoose.
“We’re proud that our awards provide developers the recognition they deserve for their work and highlight some of the coolest content on the planet,” says Smaato CEO & Co-Founder, Ragnar Kruse. “We’ve received entries from around the world and we are seeing really fresh ideas and great innovation in content and services. It’s amazing to see the diversity and the brilliance of content in the mobile world.”
With around 250 nominees and registrations from all corners of the world, judges were shown a diverse range of apps and content from a mix of cultures and ethnicities. With such a blend of backgrounds, influences and differences in demand, some fascinating trends naturally emerged from the awards process.
“I follow mobile services and applications around the world and write about them regularly,” says Jury member Tomi Ahonen. “I was very impressed by the very high level of quality of the entrants to the Smaato awards, and in particular how many of the services have achieved considerable commercial success, wide adoption and use.”
Smaato says it has seen a number of trends emerging from this year’s award entries, as follows:

Location, location, location
With success seen from location-based apps from Smaato Award Finalists such as Waze, Aloqa, Lucky Magazine (NearbyNow) and Yoose, the app-enthused public is demonstrating that they are curious about socializing with other people using the same app, in the same geographic region. People who use these apps are engaging with local promotions or meeting up for coffee, even saying ‘Hi’ to each other as they pass in the street.

Brand building with apps
Among the thousands of apps available, many brands have stepped into the arena, extending their reach to involve the app-hungry audiences around the world. Smaato sees GAP, Lufthansa, Barclaycard (by Award Finalist Fishlabs) and more leading brand marketers worldwide, as excellent examples of how to connect with brand fans by developing useful apps that reflect a brand’s mission, or extend their services to ubiquitous mobile devices and Smartphones.

Profitable fun
At the heart of the more successful app developer’s mission is increasing attention toward how to build sustained growth and profitability with different monetization options, such as SPB TV. For added monetization, mobile developers are turning to mobile advertising solutions, such as options provided by Smaato.

Apps are the new fashion accessory
Pop cultural media is increasingly paying attention to what apps fashionable people are downloading, and often feature interesting apps that are on-trend. At trendy bars in cosmopolitan cities, people can be seen exchanging tips about the best apps to use in daily life, or just to have fun, says Smaato. Among the most popular, it says, are Twitter applications such as Zensify and MoTweet, and urban guides like Buzzd or Geodelic Sherpa.

Beyond the app
Increasingly, mobile publishers are building social networking and other conversational features to add value either within apps or on the mobile web, like itsmy or Flirtomatic. Smaato sees examples of API platforms being widened to build a bridge that takes an app beyond being something you only use on a mobile phone, to integration with the traditional online world. In the advent of the 2010 soccer world championships, reach on the mobile web is achieved either globally by goal.com or locally by Lance! in Brazil.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Palo Alto, CA, and Boston, MA — September 1, 2009 — Aloqa and Skyhook Wireless today announced that the companies have teamed up to power location information on Aloqa’s mobile application. Skyhook Wireless’ patented Wi-Fi positioning system and hybrid positioning system XPS will be integrated with the Aloqa application in order to provide the location of friends and favorite places nearby.

The Aloqa application proactively notifies the user of places, events or friends in close proximity using their preferences and social network relationships. Aloqa users get real time alerts of dynamically changing content around them like movies, concerts, and when Facebook friends are nearby. The beta version of Aloqa is now available in the U.S. and Germany on Android and the Blackberry Curve 8900 and Blackberry Bold 9000, with other platforms launching in the near future.

“Skyhook’s location platform enables our users to get fast, accurate and energy-efficient location information, which is key to Aloqa’s user experience,” said Sanjeev Agrawal, CEO of Aloqa.

“More and more leading Android apps are turning to Skyhook,” said Kate Imbach, director of marketing at Skyhook Wireless. “The best apps require quality location. Developers can only get the location performance consumers now demand from Skyhook Wireless.”

Aloqa can be downloaded for free today in the Android Marketplace and on the Blackberry 8900 and 9000 by going to http://www.aloqa.com. Skyhook Wireless offers a publicly available SDK for Android developers, available here: www.skyhookwireless.com/developers/sdk.php.

About Aloqa:

Aloqa is the first company in the world to integrate location and context relevant “push” with social networking and the physical world on mobile devices. Aloqa’s application for mobile phones pushes notifications in real-time about nearby events and social opportunities – with relevancy based on the user’s current location, pre-defined interests, and social networks. Aloqa has offices in Palo Alto, California, and Munich, Germany. http://www.aloqa.com. 


About Skyhook Wireless:
Founded in 2003, Skyhook Wireless has pioneered the development of the first hybrid positioning system to fully leverage Wi-Fi, GPS and cell towers delivering precise location data supporting the growing market for location-based services. Skyhook Wireless is headquartered in Boston, MA, and is privately held. www.skyhookwireless.com

Contacts:
Beth Winkowski

Skyhook Wireless

Phone: (978) 649-7189 

Email: beth@skyhookwireless.com

Sanjeev Agrawal

Aloqa

Phone: (408) 981-3565

Email: sanjeev@aloqa.com

Partners Include Facebook Connect, Yelp, Eventful, Craigslist and 11 Others Across the United States and Germany

Palo Alto, CA — August 19, 2009 — Aloqa (http://www.aloqa.com) today announced that it has integrated content from 15 publishers into its context-aware mobile application designed to let users discover their friends and favorites nearby. The Aloqa application captures user preferences and social network relationships and then proactively notifies users of interesting places, events, and Facebook friends near them. Instead of having to launch a browser or search application, users can just look at their phones and see what favorite hotspots, friends, events of interest, and recommended bargains are close by. The beta application is now available in the United States and Germany on Android and the Blackberry Curve 8900 and the Blackberry Bold 9000, with other platforms coming in the near future.

The 15 publishers being launched on Aloqa include Facebook Connect, Yelp, Eventful, last.fm, Wikipedia, Craigslist, Topix, Fon, Coulomb Technologies, GreatDad, Google Maps API, Qype, Call-A-Bike, Nestoria, and BeLocal.

Sanjeev Agrawal, CEO of Aloqa said “Aloqa is based on a simple premise: It is hard to search on your mobile phone. When you are on the go, you shouldn’t have to constantly keep using your phone as a browser to pull information. Instead, you should just be proactively informed of relevant things around you, without entering a keyword or your location. For example with Aloqa on your phone, you dont have to touch your keyboard and will just be informed if a Facebook friends happens to be close by, that the closest Starbucks is a block away, and your favorite local jazz band is playing tonight at a pub a mile away. You can decide to hook up with your friend for the jazz show, or plan an impromptu meetup at the Starbucks. In essence, Aloqa converts your phone into a real-time context-aware assistant that gives you a personalized snapshot of your surroundings including social opportunities you would otherwise miss. And you can set it to alert you when certain friends or favorites are close by.”

To see a video of Aloqa in action, go to http://www.aloqa.com.

Aloqa’s Publishing Platform
Publishers with location-relevant content can easily integrate and distribute their content on Aloqa using the company’s API. Using the API allows publishers to reach their users easily across countries and phone types without incurring the cost of having to design, build, port and maintain their content on multiple handsets.

Georg Treu, Co-Founder and CTO of Aloqa said “We want to provide publishers with high quality location relevant content the ability to reach users across multiple mobile platforms quickly and cost-effectively. For many publishers designing, building, distributing and maintaining an app on just one platform can get very expensive and time consuming. Aloqa gives them an alternative: Just build a channel on Aloqa and give your users access to your content without breaking the bank.”

For more information on Aloqa’s publisher API, please e-mail info@aloqa.com.

Publisher Reactions:
Jordan Glazier, CEO of Eventful
“We’re pleased to work with Aloqa to help their users tap into their social connections, interests, and location to determine and proactively propose which of our events listings might be of interest. Eventful provides the most comprehensive selection of concerts and events throughout the US, Europe and around the world.”

Paul Banas, CEO of GreatDad
“GreatDad.com has developed an ‘Out and About’ section on our website to help dads find fun things to do with their kids. But a lot of dads plan while they are on the go. How can they figure out what to do when they are aren’t near a computer? Guys don’t ask for directions, and it’s hard to fire up a mobile browser to research things to do with their kids. That’s why we partnered with Aloqa. Their technology matches a dad’s location with kid-friendly sites and activities in real time and pushes those suggestions to the mobile phone. Dad sees a list of places to go that are close and convenient. What could be easier?”

Stephen Taylor, CEO of Qype
“Aloqa is adding a new dimension to our content by allowing us to push out coupons and other merchant content to users across various mobile platforms and phone types to users when it matters most – when the user is close to the merchant. Also, users can also send recommendations and comments about the business to their friends in real time and make use of social opportunities they can see on the Aloqa Buzz / Facebook channel. Such integrated real time location based content push on mobile phones is very unique and useful.”

Photos

http://www.aloqa.com/Press-Kit/

Coverage of Aloqa:
VentureBeat: Aloqa Wins MobileBeat 2009 Tesla Award http://venturebeat.com/2009/07/16/iq-engines-aloqa-win-mobilebeat-tesla-awards/
ReadWriteWeb: Mobile Search Gets a “Push”: Aloqa’s Location-Aware App Debuts
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mobile_search_gets_a_push_aloqas_location-aware_app.php
TechCrunch: Former Googler Sanjeev Agrawal To Lead Just-Funded Mobile Search Startup Aloqa
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/16/former-googler-sanjeev-agrawal-to-lead-just-funded-mobile-search-startup-aloqa/
Local Mobile Web: Aloqa: App Store within an App Store Goes Live
http://localmobilesearch.net/news/local-search/aloqa-app-store-within-app-store-goes-live

About Aloqa:
Aloqa is the first company in the world to integrate location and context relevant “push” with social networking and the physical world on mobile devices. Aloqa’s application for mobile phones pushes notifications in real-time about nearby events and social opportunities – with relevancy based on the user’s current location, pre-defined interests, and social networks. Aloqa has offices in Palo Alto, California, and Munich, Germany. More information about Aloqa can be found at http://www.aloqa.com.

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.

Connect with Aloqa:
Twitter http://twitter.com/aloqahq
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Aloqa/93595048591
Screen shots can be found at http://www.aloqa.com/Press-Kit/
Aloqa Blog: http://blog.aloqa.com

Media Contacts:
Juliet Travis
Rocket Science PR, for Aloqa
+1 415.464.8110 x 215
juliet@rocketscience.com

Sanjeev Agrawal
Aloqa
+1-408-981-3565
sanjeev@aloqa.com

Please vote for Aloqa under the “Best Location Based App” category and let your friends know!

Team Aloqa

Aloqa raises $1.5M for location-based mobile content

Former Googler Sanjeev Agrawal To Lead Just-Funded Mobile Search Startup Aloqa

VentureWire | Dow Jones Financial Information Services

Venture Capital Watch

PEHUB - Aloqa Raises $1.5 Million

Aloqa Inc receives a $1.5 million investment

Aloqa lands $1.5M funding, ex-Google marketing chief as CEO

Aloqa raises $1.5 Million in series A funding

Android App Maker Scores $1.5M

Aloqa Raises $1.5 Million In First Round For Location-Aware Mobile Service

MobileBeat: Seven startups making cool mobile apps

]]> http://aloqa.com/blog/2009/07/press-coverage/feed/ 0 http://aloqa.com/blog/2009/07/aloqa-wins-mobilebeat-2009-tesla-award/ http://aloqa.com/blog/2009/07/aloqa-wins-mobilebeat-2009-tesla-award/#comments Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:19:00 +0000 sanjeev http://aloqa.com/blog/?p=58

MobileBeat 2009 Award

Aloqa Wins MobileBeat Tesla Award/

ReadWriteWeb

LocalMobileSearch Article

Techcrunch

China

With Aloqa, we believe we are striking at the core of three things that are fundamentally wrong with the ecosystem of mobile search and discovery apps today:

1. Mobile phones shouldn’t have to be used as browsers: A phone is an interrupt based device that is intended to alert you – it rings when someone calls or buzzes when an SMS comes in. In the same way, it should “proactively notify” you of content, people, places in your surroundings that would add value to your everyday life. You should be able to use your phone as a phone – a device that alerts you, as obtrusively or unobtrusively as you’d like, of opportunities to socialize, play, work, shop, watch a show, or just grab a coffee.

2. Location is only one part of a user’s current “context”: “LBS” has become a dirty word for our generation of mobile users for a good reason – historically, “location” has been used a little too simplistically by most mobile apps. The example people give of the holy grail of LBS is always the same – “You are walking by a Starbucks, and you get a coupon sent to your phone”. Well from what we know, Starbucks doesn’t even have coupons – the occasional unsatisfied customer may get a free drink voucher from the barista to use next time. And even if they did have coupons, if all I got all day from location based apps is marketing material of various kinds, of course I would hate “LBS” too.

Here is what we believe: Location is one very important component, but only one component of a user’s context. Who the user is, what they like, the time of day, their social graph – these are all important inputs to context as well. The phone has the advantage of always being with you – it knows your location, it can be trained to know who you are and what you like, including social relationships you enjoy and therefore a perfect device for you to get “Context Based Services”. And in some contexts, those coupons we talked about do make sense – like if you want to shop or are looking for a cheap place to eat.

3. Point applications are good but it’s getting to be death by a 1000 apps: Restaurants, toilets, bars, music, events, even friend finders – are all examples of content users should always just have available at their fingertips and at once, and without having to launch individual applications and type into them. Finding friends in the context of doing something with them is far more valuable than just “where are you?”. Aloqa’s platform enables us to create a container for push based notifications that any publisher can use – using our REST API, for example a travel site can easily create a “channel” that notifies users of location-relevant content when it is relevant to them. Just as easily, any user or publisher can create a channel be it for biking trails, or popular bars where Pittsburgh Steelers fans congregate, whatever be the context-relevant content they would like to share.

So for a quick description of what we have created with Aloqa: A mobile service that proactively notifies you of interesting places, events, and Facebook friends near you. Instead of having to search, you can just look at your phone and see your favorite hotspots, friends, events of interest, and recommended bargains close by. You can customize Aloqa by deciding which “channels” you want from our “Channel Store” and what level of “alerts” you want each channel to be set to. The basic idea is simple: your phone should recommend people, places, events and opportunities you might find interesting and alert you of opportunities of interest around you.

We see a world where all the world’s location relevant content and services can come together into an aggregated “context based inbox” like Aloqa.

If you have an Android phone, do try Aloqa through the Marketplace and let us know your feedback. Today is an exciting day for us and we appreciate your taking the time and interest to visit us.

Sanjeev