A while ago a built my own code to display my latest location on Navizon (a GPS, WiFi and Celltower location service that runs on Windows Mobile, Nokia and iPhones)

While rolling my own gave me a fair amount of flexibility it struck me as fairly inefficient - all it's doing is grabbing an XML feed with location and displaying it on a map.

Since my first quick play with Popfly I've not really played around with the mashup service, but I had some idle time this morning and wondered what I could do to solve the same problem that way...

Well, 20 minutes later the Navizon + Virtual Earth mashup powered by Popfly was built (you just need to change the Navizon ID to show you instead of defaulting to me - if you sign up to Navizon to try this don't forget my referral code: 5E585D5B5A!)

This mashup refreshes every 30 seconds, pulling the location data from the Navizon XML feed and updates the pushpin with the username and the last seen data.

I'd like to find a way to tweak it so that it remembers the map zoom level for a particular user and makes it easier to change the userid for other folks when they're embedding the mashup (my previous attempt allows you to send userid, width and height of the map as parameters) ... maybe if I have some free time I'll play some more ;)

As a geek I’m guilty of perhaps not getting as much exercise as I need. Part of the problem is finding the time but that comes down to motivation. With the wonders of this socially networked age it’s easier to use technology to help with that motivation.

The geek in me likes stats. If I know I’m doing good, and overall improving against myself or friends then I have the incentive to keep going and doing better. You can do something simple like maintaining an excel spreadsheet or twittering your workout but as someone who’s recently rediscovered cycling after 20 years in cars I’m really blown away by SportsDo. All you need is a Windows Mobile device with GPS capabilities, a data connection and … to get off the computer and get some exercise!

Your first step is to register on the SportsDo.Net website and create a profile. From there you can download and install the Windows Mobile client (other devices are supported) or you can visit their over-the-air provisioning site directly from your phone (you can try out the application before buying – you’re just limited to the distance you can cover).

You’re not limited by specific sports (and you don’t have to pre-select or choose anything up front) – when you start a new activity on your device you can choose from a predefined list (cycling, walking, canoeing, running, snowboarding, skiing, rowing, adventuring, motor-sports, horse riding and many others) or create your own profile.

Once you hit “new” on your device it starts recording GPS data so it knows where you are and how fast you are going (and from that it can calculate calories etc).

When you are exercising – be is a brisk walk or a full out cycle race – you can stop and take photos to record the even. They are, of course, geo-tagged and will be uploaded along with the rest of the data to your online diary.

Even if you don’t stop you can check the display at any time to see how far you’ve gone or how long you’ve been out. You can also choose to have any of the statistics (location, speed, distance traveled, gradient and calories burned and others) announced via your phones speakers or headphones.

You can choose to share your stats live (if you have a phone with a data plan and coverage) and there is also an option to automatically text buddies with updates.

Once you complete an activity you can edit the description and upload it (with any photos) to the web where you can then share with friends – including a Virtual Earth animation of the trail you took (shows relative speeds), synchronized to graphs showing gradients and speed. An example of the sort details and an animation of one of my recent cycle rides.

If you are going on an activity in an area you might not know that well SportsDo also have Location Packs available. These contain details of trails, restaurants and other amenities, ski lifts etc. The packs are continually updated as information about an area improves, and the packs cover many popular resorts.

As well as documenting your sporting prowess you can use SportsDo to tell friends and family where you are (similar to the option for Navizon users). You can even embed the information in your blog if you want to share that much ;)

Lifecasting is a big thing at the moment. One step beyond blogging and tweeting is the ability to record and broadcast live video from a cellphone to share what you’re doing – and engage with your audience.

Qik is probably the best known of these, and is slowly rolling out an early beta service for Windows Mobile users. But Qik are not the only game in town – there are a couple of existing solutions that have great support for Windows Mobile users.

LiveCast provide a live video streaming platform for Windows Mobile and laptop or UMPC users. The video is synchronized with GPS position data so your viewers can see where you are when you’re broadcasting (or when they review archived footage where you were).

While the video quality on LiveCast is pretty good for high end phones the client is not the most intuitive (so expect to spend some time figuring it it), and the web site is a bit clunky.

LiveMedia from IncaX provides very similar capabilities – private or public broadcasting from either PC or Mobile device, though as well as streaming video it allows you to insert other media from your device to enhance the presentation.

The LiveMedia GPS mobile client (currently in beta) adds GPS location data to the broadcast from your phone, and also allows you to record a broadcast to local storage for later upload. This feature is particularly useful as it allows you to keep a record of a trip without having to worry about connectivity.

Although feature-for-feature these two solutions are fairly similar my preference is for LiveMedia. The video quality is slightly less fluid and there is no audio in the current beta version but the interface is significantly easier to work with and there are more options to share your broadcasts.

The great thing is that both of these products are at fairly early stages and are evolving quite quickly, as are the capabilities of the phones they run on. Missing features and complicated user interfaces will quickly give way to slick controls and, especially as bandwith increases, high quality video and audio.

One of the things I wanted in my perfect phone was GPS, but sadly my new Shadow doesn't have it built in.

The reason was simple. I'm new to the US and even still get lost in Redmond. Also after living in Australia for a decade I find my internal sense of direction is out of whack (it took me about 2 years to trust it after I moved to Aus)

Luckily there is a solution. Navizon have a small app you can download to your phone that uses cell towers, wifi access points and, if you have it, GPS to triangulate your location. Once it has that information it lets you navigate and record your trail (including options to export to Google Earth or as a CSV). You can geotag where you've been and share the information with buddies (or see where they are right now).

As it happens I also have a Bluetooth GPS device so I can pair that with the phone when I really want accuracy but it's good enough to locate the hotel I was in based on the 13 WiFi access points and 7 Cell Phone towers it could locate just from my room!

The application is available as a native Windows Mobile application and they also support iPhone, Blackberry and Nokia S60 devices. They even have a desktop app if you don't have WiFi or GPS on your phone.

This software relies on a community of users who contribute data to the system (WiFi and Cellular towers) when they have a GPS device. Not only do non GPS phone users get the benefit of that data but users who have a GPS device get to take part in the Navizon rewards program - each cell tower or access point you provide GPS coordinates for earns you points and those points translate (once you've got enough) into dollars via PayPal. You can even refer folks and earn a percentage of their points (they don't lose out, your bonus is in addition to their credit!)

One thing it doesn't do it let me post my location to Twitter (nice to do when I get off a plane - helps me remember where I am when I wake up in a strange hotel!) but I've send them a feature request for that ;)