HP Gloe, a Geo-tagging Experiment from HP Labs

I had heard the name before, but I just now had the opportunity to check out HP Gloe, a geo-tagging experiment from HP Labs. The app maps web content to specific locations in order to provide a platform for location-based discovery of information. Although the app is meant for mobile users, the HP site features an online version of the application which you can try now.

The online app serves as a proof-of-concept which demonstrates how this type of system could work. To use Gloe, you enter in your current location and it returns pre-populated content from Wikipedia plus review and photo sharing sites. It also features tag clouds of content by category, trending sites, recommendations, local experts and Facebook integration.

Developers can also use the HP Gloe API to build location-aware services of their own. HP offers a few suggestions, including:

• Personal Bookmarking
• Discovering Local News
• Virtual Tours
• Geographic Polls
• Searching Local Businesses
• Sharing Geo-tagged Pages with Friends

Although there are no commercial plans for the app at this time, it’s an interesting experiment worth checking out. Maybe someone wants to build a Gloe-enabled Windows Phone app?