It’s that time of year when people reflect and project. Rather than review what has happened in 2008 I am more interested in what is going to happen next year. What will be the ‘next big thing’ and who we should be watching.

After much reading over the last couple of months I have noticed an increase in chatter about Location Based Services (LBS). This is all about providing and aggregating content that is relevant to your location. For instance you may wish to find out where the nearest cash machine is to your current location or to track friends, colleagues and even children! It can also be used by businesses to provide location-based mobile advertising (something which has been done previously with varying success with Bluecasting).

A key enabler of these new services is GPS. Previously the size and cost of GPS receivers had ruled out their use in mobile devices (a rough location could be estimated by the cell site it was connected to) but now that are almost ubiquitous in new devices on the market. And with the explosion of the GPS enabled iPhone 3G and the Apple Apps store have exposed a huge number of people to LBS and created a real buzz. T-mobile’s G1, Blackberry and touch screen Android (Google’s phone operating system) based phones are following closely behind.

Who should we be watching? There are numerous LBS’ out there with huge variations in their usefulness but the following is a pick of what I will be watching:

Brightkite – A location-based social network which allows you to meet people around you and keep track of your friends. You can also post photos and notes to a location (geotagging). You can use the information posted by others to find out information and explore a new place.

The service has just come out of beta and is starting to get quite a following so certainly one to watch.

whrrl - This is a very similar service to Brightkite and is described itself as a ‘social discovery network’ allowing you to not only stay connected with friends but to discover places and events. I first came across whrrl at FOWA London 2008 and was impressed by what I saw. However, there are very few users in the UK at the moment so it’s full potential over here won’t be realised for some time.

Whrrl has some serious weight behind it with large sums of money being invested by T-Mobile and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The chief-exec, Jeff Holden is also an ex vice-president at Amazon and the man behind the hugely successful recommendations system. Will this experience lead them to really push location-based advertising, watch this space.

Mexens Technology – They have previously developed a software-based system which uses mobile phone masts and wireless networks to calculate your location – Navizon - but the guys at Maxens haven’t stopped there. There latest project is one that I am following with interest as a Community First Responder. They are developing a non-GPS positioning system that will work indoors. Initially this is being developed for medical emergency first responders to locate the exact location of a person in a room.

They are also working on Mobifindr, an application that can locate a lost phone and alert you via SMS. I’m not sure how this will work because what will you receive the SMS on?

Orbster – For the gamers out there Orbster has already created a LBS game, GPS Mission, where users can create and play location-based treasure hunts. Perhaps this will finally allow hardcore gamers to get some fresh air and daylight!

Facebook – There is nothing from Facebook to say they are venturing into the world of LBS but I would be surprised if they hadn’t plunged into this space before the year is out. If and when they do they will blow the likes of Brightkite and whrrl out of the water.

iPhone Apps – There are hords of LBS apps on the Apps Store already, too many for me to try so give them a go and let me know if you find any good ones.

Fire Eagle - I couldn’t talk about Location Based Services without quickly mentioning Fire Eagle. Yahoo launched Fire Eagle back in August as middleware for LBS. Users log into Fire Eagle and update their location in a single place. This can then update their location across multiple sites. Services already using Fire Eagle including Twitter and Flickr. It’s another excellent web service from the Yahoo Developer Network and makes it easy to build location-aware services.

I’ve only scratched the surface and there are lots more great services out there. I will follow these across the year and see if my predictions are correct!