Use Google’s new Mobile Directory without a Keyboard!

I am back with another mobile productivity application. You remember me covering Goog-411? I loved that and I love this as well. Way to go Google!

If you are using an iPhone, the newest Windows Mobile 6.1 device, a Blackberry, Android or ANY device with ANY type of mobile browser and you want to grab some local information, point your mobile to: www.google.com/m/lcb.

With this new doo-hickey you can look stuff up without typing! Google automagically discovers your city but that’s it. Maybe someday they can grab your latitude and longitude by triangulating your mobile… (no I do not watch too much “24″!)

If you have used Mobile Google on your device before, you probably already have your location set properly. If not pop in your zip code (postal code to all our European readers) and let’s rock and roll.

So you are hanging out with your friends and you want to venture AWAY from the computer (..GASP..) and want to get some real live socializing on (Not Digg! We said real live socializing wise guy!). You suggest a bar looking to get trashed and so you fire up Google’s new service. Choose “entertainment” out of the categories and then you guessed it…

Google Mobile - Categories

Google Mobile - Subcategories

I choose “bars” from the list and then I am returned with a page that says they have thousands of results. I then scroll down and they are listed by distance as you can see below:

Sure that’s great Admin but how is this different than any other service? Great question Negative Nelly!

So go ahead click on one of them…

Now I not only have access to all the information on the location, I can get a Google map, driving directions, atmosphere information as well as reviews!

Never go to a lame bar/club or eat bad pizza again!

I can think of hundreds of uses for this and it works so fast even on GPRS or Edge (I am looking at you iPhone guys!). I do not think this is a released product yet… nor do I see a beta logo on it. It is probably still in development. Anyone know anything else about it or what “lcb” stands for? Local something or other? Any ideas?

What do you guys use on the run? Let us know in the comments below! Don’t be shy…

By: Karl L. Gechlik, A superhero of the IT industry. He runs a global WAN, cracks the whip at his consulting company and gets the whip cracked at him by his beautiful wife and daughter! To follow more of his geeky antics check out his site www.askTheAdmin.com today!

Tagged: Blackberry • Google • local directory • mobile tips

Karl L. Gechlik

Karl L. Gechlik here from AskTheAdmin.com doing a weekly guest blogging spot for our new found friends at MakeUseOf.com. I run my own consulting company, manage AskTheAdmin.com and work a full 9 to 5 job on Wall street as a System Administrator.

JohntheEditor

I’d love to use this, but when I point my iPhone to http://www.google.com/m/lcb, all I get is a basic version of the search page–nothing at all like the screenshots above. Maybe this new feature is being rolled out to a limited set of users.

http://www.askTheAdmin.com Karl L. Gechlik | AskTheAdmin.com

Works on everything I have tried it on including an iPhone. Where are you located John? Are you including that coma after lcb in your link?

http://www.tquizzle.com Travis Quinnelly

Yet another great Google tool. I swear, Google will eventually be the only company I use for everything web. Its almost scary.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

Same here. I would like to use services by other companies but it’s just in most cases Google’s offering are the best ones.

Techbuzzard

Well, Android by Google may be the next fore runner in Mobile services and mobile operating system. But the way Google is trying to put its hands into everything, I just do not feel that is a good idea. Each company has its own domains and they should be better sticking to that. Otherwise, if one company has the monopoly, then its utter nonsense because there will be extreme shortage of ideas. I honestly does not like the idea of Microsoft buying out Yahoo. And in the future who knows that some other big conglomeration will buy out Google too. For the Internet to survive, it should not be the monopoly of some big corporations even though they have tremendous innovations. Sit down and think, its not the big corporations with thousands of talent sets or skills which bring great ideas. Ideas also come from people who just have the creativity to think and put out some imaginative ideas. That should be the way, no one rules, yet everyone rules, that should be the vision and the mission in this world of Internet.