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Well, I created a system to track my car wherever it went, not quite tracking a kid, but to some people, almost as important ;-)
Navizon actually is a good service. You make money on it if you have GPS attached (yes, that is a referral link, but bear with me a sec), but that is besides the point... GPS doesn't work in an urban jungle, and from my experience, parking my car in a multi-storey carpark and near the edges (so the GPS is could sort of get a line-of-sight) still wasn't good enough for GPS to work constantly.

So the way I use Navizon, is that you can set it to output its multi-tracking (GPS, then WIFI, then Cell ID, in that order, as each is less successively less accurate) service to a port on your device, and let OTHER GPS-related programs access that port, so when GPS is out-of-sight and not working, your GPS application continues to get relatively accurate positioning based on WIFI, and then failing that, triangulation based on the Cell IDs.

They also recently added in Fireagle (the Yahoo service) so that you can update your location via Twitter and whatever else works with Fireagle. And Navizon has it's own API besides Yahoo's open API if you want to play with that. So since you wanted to write your own app to view it on a website/domain (which you can either use very simply on Navizon's own site, or if yo want to get fancy and update via Twitter or others services, Fireagle integration) then you can.

I even though, if people put my car into a warehouse or even inside a container, at some point during it's travels, even if its sealed, it hopefully would get at least a Cell ID or Wifi position, so even without GPS it'll be functional. It won't be hugely accurate, but it'll set you in the right direction at least. And it doesn't rely on any carrier either, so it's carrier neutral too.

Good aye?

Yep, there's even a company called Navizon that's building a competing service to Skyhook, yet they pay individuals to collect the MAC addresses (as well as Cell tower IDs) with their GPS-equipped devices, so that those without GPS can still obtain their location. It integrates with the new Fire Eagle software/service from Yahoo too.

Here's a link (with my referral code inserted): Navizon

Skyhook has zero data in the city I live in, though I did eventually figure out how you could submit a MAC and coordinates to their system, and fed mine in, so at least my iPhone-owning friends will know where they are when they're at my house...

http://www.navizon.com/ is another alternative that uses a community-based approach to build its database of cell tower and wifi access point locations. Users who want to use the service pay a small fee, while users who have a GPS can get paid for contributing location data.

Since Navizon also combines wifi access points (which are generally have shorter ranges), it can theoretically narrow down your position even more accurately than relying just on cell towers.

Cellphone positionning does exists (and quite frankly I am tired of getting the same info over and over about Skyhook Wireless, which only covers Wifi positionning on laptop and not cell towers positionning and by the way has a very very high cost of functionning : ie paying a lot for wardrivers!). I would like to let you know about NAVIZON (http://www.navizon.com/) which does cell phones and wifi positionning systems since 2005 ! (Laptop and mobile devices) It is peer produced data and is available on symbian, windows mobile, Palm Treo, PC, and Blackberry!!. Oh I forgot to mention that it works internationnally their technology is not only for CDMA but GSM phones and of course any PC and mac.

Three words: location, location, location.

Carriers can already determine your phone's location (thanks to the Wireless E911 mandate), and third-party companies like Navizon are already beginning to do the same thing independently of carriers.

Now, imagine you're Google, and you own the service. You notice that it's lunch time and the user hasn't stopped for lunch, but they're near a fast food advertiser. You could send an SMS with a coupon to the user.

Now, I don't know that they'll necessarily follow this model, but there's plenty of things to analyze and target without being much more invasive than current carriers.

So you can have both your hotel room and your Mother-in-law on time for Thanksgiving.

You can do something similar with Navizon. You can use their Buddy Tracker thingy to know where your buddies are using wifi. And you don't have to be an MIT student to use it :-)

You can do something similar with Navizon. You can use their Buddy Tracker thingy to know where your buddies are using wifi. And you don't have to be an MIT student to use it :-)

Yup. I tried Placelab and it didn't do it for me. It was very unstable and it was just not working. I installed navizon on my PDA and after running their install wizard, I was up and running. Plus they have a neat feature where you can find cool places (bars, restaurant, etc...) around you. A very cool app that I strongly recommend. And no, I don't work for them, but they did a really nice job and someone should say it.

they have a working client for pocket pc pda/phones. http://navizon.com/