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Skyhook Announces SpotRank for Location-based Consumer Intelligence

Behavioral data based on billions of location lookups now open to developers via SimpleGeo

BOSTON, MA - March 15, 2010- Skyhook Wireless® today announced a new service called SpotRank and its availability via SimpleGeo, provider of a comprehensive location API for developers. Based on groundbreaking data never before made available, SpotRank will change the way that location-based apps are built. Skyhook is showcasing SpotRank with real time location data from this week's SXSW festival in Austin and other spots around the world. To see SpotRank in action, visit http://www.skyhookwireless.com/spotrank/worldwidemap.php.

SpotRank data is based on hundreds of millions of anonymous location lookups processed daily through Skyhook's Core Engine. This location platform powers positioning requests on tens of millions of devices and applications around the world. Skyhook continually mines this data to create detailed behavioral intelligence profiles for over half a billion 100 meter "spots" around the world. Providing brand new insight into the movement of crowds through out urban areas, these profiles are based on historical trends in location lookup volume and time of day.

Developers using SpotRank will be able to add surprising and game-changing new dimensions to their apps. Public transit or traffic apps could use SpotRanks to suggest new routes based on predicted traffic volume at a specific location. Music apps could suggest playlists based on activity in an area, with upbeat songs at peak hours. Social networking apps change up venue promotions based on the typical number of people in an area at a given time of day.

"We're looking forward to diving into the SpotRank data from Skyhook. We believe this will provide us with a remarkable new way to let the Gowalla community know the hottest places nearby, at that very moment in time, as well as in the near future. It's an exciting technology and we believe it will enable us to serve up very interesting forms of local content," said Josh Williams, CEO of Gowalla.

"Skyhook's SpotRanks are comprised of anonymous information about how people travel throughout cities, the only source of behavioral intelligence of this magnitude available worldwide. By allowing developers to play with this data we expect to see eye-opening uses of location," said Ted Morgan, CEO of Skyhook Wireless. "Developers will be able to create new applications or optimize existing applications in ways we've never even thought of before."

"We are excited to be the first to offer SpotRank," said Matt Galligan, CEO of SimpleGeo. "By opening up this data to the developer community via the SimpleGeo Marketplace, we hope to empower developers with new information about where users are accessing their apps."

"Shopkick is bridging the mobile and physical retail words. We will use SpotRank to help retailers determine the best times to offer promotions, and consumers the hottest places to shop. SpotRank fits right in with our aspiration to dramatically improve the physical world shopping experience of consumers using mobile phones," said Cyriac Roeding, Co-founder and CEO of shopkick, which created the CauseWorld location-based shopping application.

Developers can sign up for the SimpleGeo API enabled with Skyhook's SpotRank data at http://simplegeo.com/.

About Skyhook Wireless

Skyhook is the worldwide leader in location positioning, context and intelligence. In 2003, Skyhook pioneered the development of the Wi-Fi Positioning System to provide precise and reliable location results in urban areas. Today, Skyhook's Core Engine provides positioning to tens of millions of consumer mobile devices and applications. For more information visit www.skyhookwireless.com.

About SimpleGeo

SimpleGeo is a ready-to-use location infrastructure for applications. It makes adding location to applications much easier, reducing development time from months to days.

About Gowalla

Gowalla is a social network that connects people with places by inspiring them to discover and share the world. Motivated by friendship and a growing collection of game-like rewards, people have checked in at over 600,000 unique places in 165 countries. The company is privately held and is headquartered in Austin, Texas. For more information on the company, or to download Gowalla for your mobile phone, please visit www.gowalla.com

About shopkick, Inc.

shopkick is a new Palo Alto-based startup funded by Kleiner Perkins's iFund and Reid Hoffman, founder and Chairman of LinkedIn, and investor in Facebook. shopkick, Inc. was founded based on the belief that the intersection of mobile and physical retail is the next big opportunity in mobile to create consumer value. The Silicon Valley-based company's goal is to drastically improve the shopping experience of consumers by utilizing cell phones' location awareness, unprecedented personalization capabilities, and social/viral features. shopkick launched its mobile application CauseWorld in the United States in December 2009. The app is supported by Citi, Kraft Foods and Proctor & Gamble. The shopkick team consists of mobile and web experts who previously built the mobile division of CBS in Los Angeles, and successful mobile and online ventures in Europe and the U.S. (12snap, GoldPocket Wireless, Loopt, CommerceFlow, Rojo), and from Google, TellMe/Microsoft, and PROCTER & Gamble.

Contact

Beth Winkowski
Skyhook Wireless
Phone: (978) 649-7189
Email: beth@skyhookwireless.com