After posting the article regarding GYPsii, I received a number of emails from other social location networking services, including ZKOUT. It seems GYPsii and Loopt are not the only companies seeking interest in having myself and my friends share their whereabouts and travel experiences online.

Being old enough to have survived the original dotcom bust and perhaps a bit wiser because of it, I question how these companies will survive without a visible source of revenue. Surely they all can’t expect to be swept up by Google, simply for the eyes they might bring?

During my tenure as CEO at Air-Trak, we sold GPS based location tracking services to enterprise customers for a monthly service fee. It was certainly not as viral as the experiences that GYPsii, Loopt or ZKOUT might be delivering, but the business was self sustaining and when I left, profitable.

One application segment we sold into was referred to in law enforcement as situational awareness. For incident commanders having the right knowledge about people and places at the right time is essential to perform missions safely and effectively. These new consumer services have interesting parallels and share common technical underpinnings with tracking applications; they are just not equipped with the more secure and demanding capabilities required for law enforcement or technical surveillance requirements.

Loopt and others would need to reinvent themselves to address these markets, but it’s interesting to ponder how their innovative features, such as their geotagged photo capture with online sharing, might benefit law enforcement and other B2B markets.

Whizzing around the streets of downtown San Diego, San Francisco, and Miami, you see the three-wheeled sensation, GoCar (gocartours.com). Bright yellow with racing stripes, the cute GoCar is more than just a rental trike, it‘s a guided, talking tour car. Using a GPS-equipped onboard computer tied into amplified speakers, the trike takes you on a self-guided tour of a city’s most interesting sights.

There’s nothing really new here on the technology front. Companies like Node in the UK (nodeexplore.com) are producing turnkey solutions that deliver mobile media directly to the user, tailored to who and where they are. License Node‘s platform, and you too can deploy a GPS-tour solution.

So I‘ve been thinking… This is just the beginning. I‘m envisioning an iPhone application that enables anyone to choose their own self-guided tour from a menu of location-specific tours, whether in a car, on a bicycle, or on foot – anywhere in the world. For example, perhaps you would like to explore homes for sale in the 92101 zip code – without the realtor in tow. Just enter in zip and price range, and Bingo! The iPhone gives you directions to and information about homes within the desired radius.

The key here is the combination of GPS-enabled devices, navigation support, and a web site for rich media content and tour creation. Add to the mix a few travel experts, and you have the next wireless sensation.

Darn. The utour url is taken…

When Jimmy Buffet sings about "Gypsies in the Palace", he refers to friends who have been left at home to housesit while he’s out on tour – they wildly party and drink, much like a teenager left at home alone.

The song I think helps establish Gypsii as great name for a new location based social networking platform that connects people and content to places and networks. Gypsii was in the press last week as Garmin has now licensed Gypsii for deployment in their connected GPS devices, most likely their forthcoming Nuviphone,

Gypsii today freely downloadable for the iPhone, Windows Mobile, Blackberry and Symbian GPS equipped phones. It enables geotagging of content with fun and helpful method of sharing. How cool would it have been while at the ball game today to have been able to hook up with friends which otherwise unbeknownst to me, might have also been at the game? Very cool I think.

Although certainly not the only social networking site to exploit location awareness (Loopt, others), Garmin’s endorsement is a strong one, and likely going to propel them forward nicely. Interested in more on social networking, visit Social Networking Watch.