10-13-2002, 07:00 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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YuBee location based services for your Pocket PC
http://www.yubee.com
YuBee is another site that allows you to put in your zip code and it will tell you where restaurants are, what movies are playing, local news and where wireless hotspots are. I used it a few times today and it works pretty well, though it does have some holes in it. Read more if you are interested in some screenshots and some of the pluses and minuses I found.Note that there is a drawing on their home page to win a Pocket PC Phone from T-Mobile and when I signed up, I got a $100 coupon towards the purchase of the Pocket PC Phone Edition, though I don't know how long either of those offers/contests last.
Figure 1
This is the YuBee main menu. You must give it your email address for it to remember your settings between sessions, but that's it.
Figure 2
Selecting Restaurants from Figure 1 will bring you to this menu. Here is one of the downsides of YuBee. Instead of using the zip code you gave it to bring up the popular eateries around you, it seems to pick the same 4 items every time - Starbucks, Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba's and Wholesale Foods. Doing this in Butte Montana, for example, will get you nothing.  YuBee doesn't leave you hanging though. More on that in a minute. Regardless of what city I went to, it didn't do much in the way of wireless hotspots for me. YuBee did contact me though and they are working on this feature. To be honest, I've yet to see a site that does effectively tell you where hotspots are.
Figure 3
Looking up Wholesale Foods in Beverly Hills will give you a ton of links. Looking up Starbucks in Seattle will probably crash your browser. :wink: It gives mileage estimates, but from where I have no idea. Perhaps the geographic center of the zip code you entered.
Figure 4
Ok, if the default choices YuBee doesn't offer enough or anything at all, it has a selection of links at the bottom of the page that will help you out, and the ones I tested were all optimized for Pocket Internet Explorer. I even added a few of these links to my Favorites, like www.globaldining.com.
Figure 5
If you register with YuBee by simply using your email, it will keep track of what you have asked and give on a convenient dropdown of recent zip codes you've queried. It worked well on the Pocket IE screen and it was gentle with my GPRS data account. I used under 150K in moving around all of these screens. I do have my T-Mobile proxy set to give me medium quality images through GPRS, so I am sure that helped keep the data transfers down. It is definitely worth checking out and I've added it to my Favorites and plan to use it when traveling.
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10-13-2002, 07:00 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 254
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Re: YuBee location based services for your Pocket PC
Interesting. I admit i havent looked to much into it, but this is US only right? Or does it work for us on the other side of the pond too? If not, do you know of any alternatives?
__________________
In times of change, its the learners who will inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to handle a world that no longer exist.
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10-14-2002, 05:33 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 7
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Thanks for the feedback!
Hey Ed,
Thanks so much for giving Yubee a thorough look-see as well as providing exactly the kind of feedback we're looking for to keep improving the product.
I wanted to address a couple of the issues you brought up directly:
- No Hot Spot directory
Yeah, we want that too! We're working on it. I just added a Surf and Sip Network hot spot directory up in our wireless section. There are a couple of issues with running a full blown all inclusive hot spot directory. The primary one is that for it to have enough coverage in enough zip codes to be useful, you have to use aggregate data from a lot of different sources. We hope to have better WiFi LBS in the next week or two.
- "Instead of using the zip code you gave it to bring up the popular eateries around you, it seems to pick the same 4 items every time - Doing this in Butte Montana, for example, will get you nothing. "
We are aware of this, however, we sacrificed Butte-ians on a "needs of the many outweigh needs of the few or the one" Star Trekkian model. We wanted to offer the person driving into major cities in his rental car or running through an airport carrying two bags, the ability to find a decent meal and a cup of coffee or a hotel or whatever quickly with a couple of taps. We have the intention of adding more dynamic "Best Bet" content as we acrue more sponsors.
In the meantime, the best solution is the "Locator" which is one of the main categories on YuBee's front page. The Locator applies your saved zipcode to a general search box, so you can search for "dinner" or "sushi" or "Ichiban" and get either general or specific listings based on local Yellow Pages entries.
FYI, all the listings returns in YuBee offer one-touch dialing from a Phone Edition Pocket PC.
Searching for a Starbucks in Seattle actually truncates the results at 20 listings so it doesn't kill your data transfer or crash your browser.
We are also working on a UK version of Yubee.
Ultimately, though, your review was excellent feedback and exactly the kind of stuff we're looking for as we continue to add services and capabilities to the product. I encourage all of you guys to dig through it, use it, and let us know what you think would make it a more useful tool for you. You can always contact me directly at [email protected] and know that your input will get real consideration.
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