A free mobile application for Symbian/WinMob5 devices called Navizon gets some clever new functionality, and it is now just begging for Google Earth integration.

The background: Navizon uses GPS, wifi and cellular signals to position you geographically inside a peer-to-peer network with other Navizon users, where you then get to be all geo-social with one another: You can track buddies (with their permission), or search Google Local, for example.

But now there’s a new version and a new feature: Geotags. No, these are not the geotags we know and love on Flickr; these “geotags” are messages written by Navizon users that are posted to a physical location instead of to a URL (at least metaphorically).

For example: You have an atrocious meal at a restaurant, and decide to warn people away: You write a message on your mobile device, tag it (√Ü la Technorati) and post it to Navizon’s server then and there. Anybody else plugged into the network and passing nearby will from now one be altered by it, if they are listening for the right tags. It’s a very clever idea (one that some Swedish friends have been mooting for a while), and it was only a matter of time before somebody implemented it.

So what’s still missing? The Navizon database of tags is crying out for a Google Earth network link that we all can access. These messages would also make great content for insertion in GeoUrl, and why not use the network to post phonecam pictures, both to other users nearby, and automatically geo-tagged to Flickr?

I think that in five years, when we all have our iPodGPScamPhoneMacBooklet, what Navizon offers will be commonplace, but for now, it’s an early adopters’ playground.

(Bonus nefarious uses of Navizon: Listing security codes to doors (especially useful in Stockholm), listing locations of speed traps… But it would also be an excellent tool for treasure hunts.)

(Via GIS user weblog)