StreetMuseum by Museum of London

The Museum of London has launched a pretty slick iPhone app that enables users to access its extensive art and photographic images of the streets of London. 

The free app uses the iPhone’s geolocation technology to allow users to hold up their phones to London landmarks and overlay a historic image of it on the real-time image.

The really exciting thing for me about this app is mashing up the past with the present!

More info here.

Pacha / Ibiza AR app

The yet-to-launch Pacha VIP Guide will be much more than “yet another guide to Ibiza” (or so they say). They’re using augmented reality to guide tourists around the island and allow them to find out what is happening in every club in real time. Apparently you’ll be able to discover locations for secret parties, cool bars, and hidden gems.

I’m giving my liver a rest from Ibiza this summer, but if you’re lucky enough to be going, I’d give this a go

Via the other clever Nick.

Pepsi Loot

Pepsi’s new iPhone app (which launches later this month) will offer consumer rewards in the form of free music downloads. Users “check in” to locations (ala foursquare) to earn badges for regular visits. What’s more, buyers will gain one point for each purchase through Loot – every three points earned equates to one free download from a base of 250,000 licensed songs.

It seems that finally location-based brand utilities are taking off!

Dodgeball is a location-based mobile social network in the US, which is actually pretty cool. Apparently it’s been around for a while, but it seems to have come back ‘in’. After my rant a while ago about mobile social networking, I must admit that there’s actually some pretty exciting stuff going on (perhaps more so in the US though). 

Mobile phones have already changed the way we communicate with our friends and the way arrange to meet up. Perhaps this is just the next logical step. I would love it. Hit Soho, hit Endurance (nice pub), send a text message to Dodgeball, it relays this to all my mates in the area and we all meet up. Simple but neat. Anyone know of anything similar in the UK?

Location-based stuff can be a bit too ‘big brother’, but if you keep it to close friends on your Dodgeball list it could be a genuinely useful way of casually meeting up with mates. It also notifies your ‘crushes’ when you are nearby. Kinda like poking people on Facebook…but even more stalkerish!

It’s no surprise to hear that as part of Google’s world domination plans (okay slight exageration), they have of course acquired Dodgeball. Yes that’s right, they not only know what we like, but where we are and who we fancy! 

Another simple but useful mobile application is jott.com which saves voice messages into text messages – great for offloading stuff you need to remember later…