UPDATE: We have identified the source of the issues that were causing connectivity problems and may post a more detailed, technical explanation soon.  In the mean time, please download and install the latest Sherpa build, we corrected the issues and released the new client to the Android Marketplace last night, the same day that we were made aware of the issues.  Thank you!

We are having some inconsistent server connectivity issues that are preventing a limited number of people from connecting to the primary database.  The result is slow or no connectivity, which means that results are delayed in searches, or Sherpa is unresponsive in extreme cases.

These problems appear to be limited and are not system wide.  We just wanted to let you know that we are aware of the problem and are working quickly to get it resolved.

If you have any specific feedback for us with your Sherpa experience right now, we would love to hear it in the comments, feedback is always useful.  Of course we always encourage you to send us specific bug notices and problems to support@geodelic.com as well.

Thank you so much for your patience, we will post and update when we have it.

BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Skyhook Wireless, provider of the patented Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) and the hybrid positioning system XPS, today announced a partnership with Geodelic, developer of the new Android mobile application, Sherpa.

Sherpa, developed by Geodelic specifically for T-Mobile’s myTouch 3G with Google, allows users to effortlessly discover the most relevant information based on their location and preferences. Created by Geodelic, the application learns your likes and dislikes through behavior and user feedback, prioritizing recommended retailers, restaurants and attractions. Seamlessly blending behavior recognition, a recommendation engine and location-relevant information, this combination of learning is exclusive to Sherpa and unlike any experience currently on the market. For brands and businesses, Geodelic also enables businesses to quickly create customized mobile experiences that provide informational and promotional content relevant to their locations.

“Skyhook offers a major enhancement to the application’s location awareness,” said Rahul Sonnad, CEO and founder at Geodelic. “This allows Geodelic to more accurately target content for a user, whether they are in a mall or walking down the street. We developed Sherpa to give users a customized experience based on their location and interests. Skyhook provides the location performance that our application demands.”

Read More »

Do you have a pre-lease build (114) of Sherpa? This is what to do to make your experience better.

If you have a pre-release version (build 114) of Sherpa on your T-Mobile myTouch 3G or other Android mobile , you’re going to want to uninstall it and then install the current release, and there are some technical reasons for this that will dramatically improve your experience.

A little history: we built a version of the Sherpa application for use by the press for pre-release reviews, but that build got out onto the internet and became available to the public, as sometimes happens.  Although this was not an official release, we were thrilled to hear the overwhelmingly positive response to the application, and to see people really talking it up around the various social networks.

There are a couple of things you need to know about that build.

(1) It was built using a private internal developer certificate, with an expiration date set to a fairly short-term expiration that (we thought) would only affect perhaps a couple of dozen reporters and our QA team.  However, if you installed a copy of build 114 it will also affect you. What this means is if you have this early build, you must uninstall it before you can go to the Android Marketplace and install the release version of Sherpa.

(2) Build 114 used a third-party library for obtaining your location. However, it used a test account to obtain that information, so it is very likely that the application is not accurately finding your location. One of the things that makes Sherpa so incredible is its pinpoint accuracy in finding out where you are.

The good news is, the fix for this is really simple.  Uninstall build 114, then go to the Android Marketplace and search for “Sherpa”, download and install.  Then…have fun with the official release, and let us know on Twitter or Facebook what you think! If you are reading this on your Android phone, just click this link to go directly to the download site.

Thank you, and as always, if you have any questions let us know in the comments!

Do you own a T-Mobile myTouch or other Android based mobile phone?  We’re happy to announce Sherpa, the location based experience app for your device.  Sherpa helps you to find great food, shops and events around you, based upon your location and interest…and the best part is that it learns as you go.  That’s right, the more you use Sherpa, the more it will become familiar with your likes and dislikes, giving you a better experience. Here is a little more about what it does and how it works.

Relevance Engine

Our proprietary technology automatically filters your surroundings, by weighing relevance against distance. It allows you to filter by category (restaurants, coffee shops, travel spots), by location (for what stores are in the mall) or by brand (everything from Martha Stewart to Target).

Passive Personalization

The app’s learning feature is an exclusive customized experience. This feature enables the app to automatically create a unique interest profile, learning your bank or your favorite coffee shop. Over time, the app becomes more and more “you”, effortlessly.

Search-less Search

With a click, find instant information about where you are and the type of location you’re browsing. For movies, we’ll give you movie reviews and show times. For restaurants, we’ll include the menu, a tipping calculator or help make a reservation. For traveling, get flight arrivals and baggage restrictions.

Tap Through Categories

Navigate information by browsing categories (restaurants, coffee shops, travel spots), locations (stores in the mall) or brands (Starbucks, McDonald’s or Bank of America).

Refine Your Recommendations

Give your favorite java joint a thumbs up, and the app will recommend more stuff like it, quickly and easily.

Digging into a specific business or restaurant allows you to see reviews, ratings, address and other information regarding the establishment. It pulls in reviews from Citysearch and Yelp. You can even call from right within the app by tapping the call button. This myTouch application also includes mapping and directions and a fast search that you can filter based on categories. The passive personalization and breadth of the directory makes other location-based directories redundant. And the longer you use this app the more useful it gets.

Ready to download it? Open up the browser on your Android based phone and click here,  then come back and let us know what you think!

Yes, we only launched it this morning, and there is already an update this afternoon.

Yeah, I know, I know. “What’s going on out there in Santa Monica?”

Well, it turns out that as soon as we started getting massive downloads our server logs showed a problem with one of the requests the phone was making. While it was a minor issue that only affect a very small fraction of phones–and while the client recovered immediately after making the bad request (so it didn’t affect anyone’s actual experience), it turns out the bad request was, well, bad.

And with the unanticipated popularity of this app, a minor problem creating a bad request that only affects a very small fraction of phones out there scaled up to become a major pain in the neck for our server.

So, at the last minute we decided to slip out a fix which resolved this bug.

(For the technically inclined, the fundamental problem is that during startup on a phone that has never used GPS before, there is a race condition in the state machine which manages the list of known POIs and the code which obtains the position. This race condition created a very small window where a search request gets sent to the server that doesn’t actually contain a location to look for. The request then returns “no cigar”–which causes the client to try again, but with the location.

Which isn’t a problem, except the server really didn’t like it. Of course we have more than enough capacity for our projected usage–but why flood the back-end with bad requests?)

Yes, we really tested this thing. Our crack team of testers and developers are some of the best people I have ever worked with in my 21 years as a professional software developer. But this was one of those really weird cases that only affected a very small fraction of phones that we would never have caught if we weren’t just so darn popular!