@Mobile 2.0 drinks, LBS and Steve Jobs voicemail with Ted Morgan CEO Skyhook Wireless

The best party at Mobile 2.0 was of course the Smaato party at the incognito bar. It was a lovely location and a great mix of mobile elites. One of them was Ted Morgan the CEO of Skyhook Wireless.

Ted Morgan has a huge personality but we didn’t get off to the best start as I confused the company SkyHook for Hook Wireless (and told Ted I knew the CEO of Sky(Hook) which made for a great laugh). What happened next was a serious session of banter where Ted was trying to prove to me he was the CEO of SkyHook and I was proving to him that I was in mobile for years and also knew what I was talking about… and his company got sold and one of the guys now worked for MocoSpace…

Steve Jobs voicemail
So then after about 5 minutes. Ted said, look only because you are a journalist and I never do this – this is proof that I am who I am. He pulled out his iPhone and asked me to listen to a voice mail. It was Steve Jobs leaving a message for him with interest in his technology.
Now, this turned the tables around as I realised that I must have confused companies and the tables turned. I wanted to know everything I could about SkyHook.

Ted showed me his phone opened an application and said, SkyHook Wireless is this button. He pointed at a small button on the left of the screen and said, that is what we do.

I told him that “the button” didn’t impress me and he had to do better than that! This lead to a fun and creative demo at the bar.

What is SkyHook?
Well SkyHook Wireless is a location based service that can find your location on your phone exactly anywhere.

How?
Basically, SkyHook uses Wi-Fi to get exact location. Basically, as Ted put it he sent thousands of people in cars around the globe capturing Wi-Fi networks. Using the name of the network you can pinpoint the exact location. GPS doesn’t work inside but SkyHook does.

Proof?
Me, being me. I contested this accuracy. Ted pulled out his phone and believe it or not we appeared at the bar on the map inside exactly. I have seen this to 50 meters or 100 meters or to the nearest street –but being in the bar, with the name and all the information was great.

What we think?
Yikes. LBS that works. That is vital. Using the Wi-Fi network is pure genius and I wish I had thought about that myself. Ted has a great personality and every though I met so many people over the past day only perhaps three I will really remember. Being a success and having a great personality really are joint.