No need for a map with iPhone's ski app

Denver firm adds interactivity to area charts

By Tom Boyd, Special to the Rocky

Published December 15, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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A Denver company is putting itself on the map with a new mobile application called the "Snocator," a nifty piece of software that displays more than 70 maps for North American ski resorts and shows the user where they are on the map, where they're going, plus weather and on-mountain restaurant information.

"We've taken the anxiety and intimidation out of navigating the ski resort, especially for skiers who may be worried about avoiding difficult runs or getting lost," said Chris Glode, Snocator product manager for Denver-based Useful Networks, a subsidiary of Liberty Media Corp. "It's also very convenient, not to mention green, to never have to deal with the traditional unwieldy paper trail maps."

Snocator also provides access to daily snow reports for the resorts, which users can quickly sort by snowfall totals to find where the best snow might be. Links to webcams are also included in the current version.

An upcoming version will deliver information like how fast a snowrider is going, how much vertical has been skied and where other skiers in the group are located.

Location and GPS technology are the specialty of Useful Networks, which developed its most successful software in an application called SNIFF, a social network integrated friend finder. About 150,000 people subscribe to SNIFF in Scandinavia, where friends can find one another by sending a quick text message.

The group of 38 employees who work in the Denver office are ski and snowboard aficionados, so Snocator was a natural next step.

"We're in the location technology industry, but we also happen to be ski bums," Glode said.

Tested at Vail as a beta app last year and launched with maps of more than 800 ski resort trail maps worldwide Oct. 31 , Snocator is now the second-most popular paid sports app for iPhone, and has received mention in Apple's staff picks.

Problems arose during testing last year in part because many ski areas have black-out zones on the hill. This year, however, Snocator works well even when out of range, so long as the correct map has already been downloaded to the phone.

Pushing the touch screen can be a chilly task, however, since the iPhone touchscreen doesn't work with typical gloves. That problem, however, has been solved by several companies that offer special touch-screen friendly gloves, which allow users to operate their iPhones in chilly conditions without removing their cozy handwear.

Useful Networks also offers a tool kit called AdWhere, which offers location-based advertising as a way for brands to reach customers with messages and offers at nearby store locations.

"Location is the unique and key element to providing the best possible experience in mobile apps, and we've made it our mission to make location simple, safe, and reliable for developers and end users alike," said Useful Networks CEO Brian Levin.

A subscription to Snocator is available at the iPhone app store for $2.99 during the holidays ($5.99 regular price) and it lasts throughout the ski season.

Snocator by Useful Networks

* What: Application for the iPhone

* Offers: Snow reports, GPS trail maps and weather for more than 800 ski resorts worldwide

* Where to buy: At the iPhone App Store under the "Sports" category or by texting "snow" to 90999 from your iPhone.

* Cost: $2.99 during the holidays ($5.99 regular price)

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