The introduction of the Can Spam Act in the US in 2000 made it illegal for content to be pushed to owners of mobile devices who hadn’t specifically opted in and proved to be a spanner in the works for the advertising and marketing industries. However, ingenious innovation has been channelled instead into the development of location-based services that puts American consumers in control, enhancing their lives by making everyday tasks easier.

Building on the GPS technology that has given people on the move access to local directories and maps, Networks in Motion (NIM) showcased AtlasBook Navigator™ at the CTIA conference earlier this year, which combines mapping with real-time data to deliver a range of intelligent solutions. By adding real-time traffic information to standard turn-by-turn directions for example, the navigator alerts users to the quickest detours around congestion spots available at that time. This layering of applications – or widgets – over maps, has turned mobile devices into friends in need. It’s now possible to search for, and be directed to, not only the closest gas stations but gas stations with the cheapest prices that day, not only locate a cinema a block away but read reviews of what’s showing and find a place to park. Using Urban Mapping’s ** you can navigate across a city the quickest way using different public transport systems starting at the station or bus stop nearest to you and, if using Hollowire’s location-based prompter, Proxido, get a reminder to pick up a curry as you pass the Indian takeaway.

Then there’s the rise of the citizen mapper. Developers, Ten 23 won the American leg of the NAVTEQ LBS Global Challenge this year with SpotJots, a location-based social blogging application that allows you to upload or access reviews, images and video associated with specific locations on the fly. And this functionality goes beyond sharing tips on the best pub: Mediated Spaces’ Wildlab plots real-time observations from America’s twitchers and amateur naturalists on a central, nationwide map.

After the introduction of the Sprint Family Locator made it possible for family members to locate each other, or at least their phones back in early 2006 ,there was a flurry of development in the area of tracking, proximity-based notification and Mobile Activity Planning. “Social networking is already hugely popular on the Internet and we had a vision years ago that people would want a way to easily keep in touch and meet up with their friends using their mobile phone,” said Doug Antone, CEO of NIM whose AtlasBook Navigator™ lets subscribers use place messaging functions to send each other audible turn-by-turn directions to the place in which they’re waiting. Google’s Dodgeball, up and running in 22 cities across the US, is a kind of Facebook of the mobile phone, using LBS to notify members when friends (and friends of friends) are near, even advising them to spruce themselves up when ‘crushes’ come into range. Inevitably the potential has been spotted for LBS-based multi-player games, like Game Park, involving tracking and being tracked, and played out in the real world using handsets.

But there are serious applications too. GPS-enabled phones have supported enhanced emergency (E911) services for years. Now that service is being refined. New York college students can give a location to campus police if in trouble through Rave Wireless, while America's Emergency Network's solution, AEN Mobile, which taps into the emergency bulletin database, and warns users of natural disasters, riots and shootings within range of their mobile devices, thereby potentially saving lives.

And tracking – workforce and assets - is useful in the business world. Services like Sprint Precision Locator and Verizon's Field Force Manager enables companies to plot the whereabouts of decentralised staff on an interactive map, supply workers with text, audio and visual directions, select and dispatch staff to jobs according to their proximity, and basically keep an eye on efficiency by tracking routes and stop and start times, a level of supervision which while undoubtedly useful is not without controversy.

There are mixed feelings also over the obvious efficiency of services like Smarter Agent: Apartments for Rent, available on the Sprint & AT&T networks. Like the name suggests, your phone, which will display pictures and details of available apartments within your vicinity, along with maps of how to find them and the landlords’ numbers is doing a pretty good job of making intermediaries redundant, although this particular service, it must be stressed, does also display contacts for rental agents when available.

Geospatial technology has created a solid foundation, now the more content that’s added, and the more access there is to real-time data feeds, the more indispensable our already indispensable mobile phones are going to become.