Do you like making movies? Do you like Loopt Star? Do you like money? Then we have a contest for you.

Show off your video-production moves in a contest we’re running with Tongal. You already helped us think of some cool concepts to work off, now take those concepts and create a 30-second spot showing off Loopt Star and all the cool things you can do with it.

Here’s the best part: there’s $7500 in cash and prizes that you’ll be competing for.

The contest closes on August 9, so you’ve only got a little bit of time left to show us your best work. Visit www.tongal.com/looptstar for more contest rules and information. We’ll see you in Cannes?

We announced new rewards today for Loopt Star, check out this video, which details the new deals:

New Deals Available to Loopt Star Users

• Paul Frank – Check in to any participating Paul Frank store and get an instant 20 percent discount off your purchase. Users can also win the Paul Frank Super Fan Achievement. Participating stores are in Chicago; Costa Mesa, Calif. (South Coast Plaza); Las Vegas (Fashion Show Mall); Los Angeles; New York; and San Francisco.
• Element – Check in to the Element Times Square store in New York and receive an Element Eco-Water Bottle plus a 10 percent discount off any purchase of $75 or more. Users can also win the Element Fan Achievement.

Other existing real rewards available include free music from Loopt Star, with songs from cool artists like Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Mos Def and others when checking into any participating bar in the United States and receiving the Loopt Star “Discover The Music Around You” Reward. There’s also an award from Gap, which gets you 25% off after checking in twice.

Download Loopt Star from iTunes now so you can start playing!

Alerts aren’t new to location-based services, but ultra-relevant alerts are. Loopt Friend Alerts sidestep the deluge of updates, and just ping you when your friend is within one mile — when an ad-hoc meetup is possible. This sort of relevance is something location service users have been craving: the convenience of meeting up with friends, with the ability to skip notifications when friends are at the dentist two thousand miles away.

A few fast facts about Friend alerts:
• To get Friend Alerts, both you and your contacts have to activate background location sharing and Friend Alerts under Loopt -> Settings.
• Friend Alerts work on iPhones running iOS4 in the background; on iOS3 when Loopt is in the foreground; and they always works on Android and Blackberry, which run apps in the background.

Here’s a shot of the iPhone Notifications screen, under Settings, where you turn on the feature:

Loopt has now launched Location History settings — a way for you to download and save your personal Loopt location history into a KML file*. Your personal location history includes both your “check in”/share locations with Loopt, and all the tracking points in between that Loopt has saved in the background. Loopt Location History works on all models of phone supported by Loopt.

Why do this?

Your KML file can be used by Google Earth, for example, to create some cool visual mashups of trips you take, for example.  You might want add geo-tagged photos to your mashups. You might want to study your driving routes to find a more efficient commute. You might be interested to see how many miles you travel in a week, a month, a year. You could turn it on at the beginning of a road trip, and off again at the end. Whatever your reason, have fun!

Is it private?

Totally! We don’t specifically share your data with anyone. You can turn on or off Location History at any time. Loopt Location History is turned off by default.

To turn on Location History, do the following:

1. Log into your account on Loopt.com here: https://app.loopt.com/loopt/sess/login.aspx. (Or, click Login from the Home page of Loopt at http://www.loopt.com.) You use the same mobile phone number and password that you use to access your Loopt mobile account on your phone.
2. Click on Settings in the top right corner.



3. Check on the agreement, and click on Save It to start saving your history.

To download your Location History, do the following:

1. Go back to settings (see above).
2. Click on Download My Location History to save your KML file.

To clear your Location History, do the following:

1. Go back to settings (see above).
2. Click on Clear My Location History.  All traces of your Location History will be removed from the Loopt databases.

* KML – “Keyhole Markup Language.”  You can read more about KML here. The KML file specifies a set of features (place marks, images, polygons, 3D models, textual descriptions, etc.) for display in Google Earth, Maps and Mobile, or any other 3D Earth browser (geobrowser) that supports KML encoding.  You could, for example, import your KML file into Google Earth. Read more about how to do this here.

Upgrade to our shiny new version of Loopt 3.0 for iPhone is live in the iTunes store now. (Read about Loopt 3.0 here.). Get it now!

The new version has a few important things going on:

• You can now share your location in the background for up to 24 hours; with the Loopt 3.0 version, the maximum time was 8 hours; everyone wanted longer!
• It’s compatible with iOS3 and iOS4. (Note, you need iOS4 for background goodies.)
• You can create your own Facebook events on Loopt, and have your friends participate and RSVP from within Loopt.

We’re thrilled with response to Loopt 3.0.  We got over 300,000 upgrades in the first two days!  We’re seeing over 250,000 requests for Pulse information (Events, Places) every day, and 30,000 daily friend invites are going out.

Thanks for all the great feedback and support.

Now there’s even more reason to check in with Loopt Star. Free music! Seriously!

All you need to do is to check into any bar in the United States with Loopt Star.

You’ll win the Loopt Star Discover The Music Around You Reward.

What is this Reward?

The Music Reward is five free songs from very cool artists including: Mos Def, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Taio Cruz, La Roux and MORE!

How do I get it?

1. Find a participating bar.  A participating bar will have the “star” icon alongside its name:

 


2. Check into the bar. You’ll immediately be told you’ve won the Reward!
3. Go to your Me tab.
4. Click on Completed Rewards.
5. Redeem the Reward.
6. Give us your email address. (Don’t worry. We won’t use it for any nefarious purposes.)
7. We’ll send you a link and a special code to choose music. You have to redeem the music on your laptop, rather than on your phone. (But you can transfer to your music library later of course.)

What music do I get?

Go to http://www.amplified.com/loopt to see today’s selections. We’ll be changing them as we move along, so check back often!

This is cool. Try your hand at making us a Loopt Star commercial. Help us tell the world what Loopt Star is all about …

Go to http://tongal.com/looptstar for details.

$7,500 prize purse for the winning video. How sweet is that?! Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

On Monday, we announced the new Loopt for iPhone. It just hit iTunes, so get it now »

(Note: only users who have upgraded to the latest iOS 4.0 will be able to use this version of Loopt)

We’re really excited to take advantage of all that iOS 4 has to offer, most notably: background location sharing. With this update, you’ll be able to receive alerts when friends are nearby, even if Loopt isn’t running in the foreground. You can receive those updates via push notifications. To setup Friend Alerts, click “Alerts” from the home screen.

“Does that mean my Loopt friends can see where I am, too, even if I don’t have the app open?” Only if you want them to, of course!

As with all versions of Loopt, you’re always in control of who can see your location.

Turning on location sharing is optional, and can be changed at any time you choose (you can change it to manual location updating or no updates at all).

Furthermore, you can “hide” your location from your Loopt contacts on a friend-by-friend basis. All of these features can be accessed by clicking on “Settings” from the home screen and then clicking “Location Privacy.”

You can share updates with your friends across your favorite social networks, like Facebook and Twitter. But what’s new with this update is that you can optionally push your live location to those networks for up to 8 hours. It’s a cool feature if you’re going on a trip, running a race—just about anything you can think of where you want your friends on Facebook and Twitter to be able to follow along with you as you complete your trek!

Here’s a summary of what’s new in this version of Loopt for the iPhone:

• Background location sharing takes advantage of multitasking on the new iOS 4 so you can always let your close friends and family know where you are, even when you’re using other apps
• Set up friend alerts to find out when they’re nearby via push notifications
• Brand new grid view on the home screen to easily navigate Loopt’s rich feature set
• Discover the places your friends and the Loopt community like best
• Choose favorite friends to quickly find them on the home screen

Try out the new Loopt for iPhone and iPod touch for yourself; get it now in the AppStore!

Have you got any? Hopefully you’ve at least earned your Rookie Achievement (view your collection of Achievements on the Me tab in Loopt Star)!

You earn Achievements for exploring the world around you with friends on Loopt Star — there are quite a few to get — for checking in to bars, restaurants, etc., and just getting out and about.

Tell us how it’s going, and give us feedback by leaving a comment!

Christmas came early when one of the Apple iPhone 4s we pre-ordered arrived in the mail earlier today—two days ahead of the scheduled date. Click here to watch the video of Sam opening it for the first time!