SquawkBox Conference Call Sept 15: Trapster.com

Our guest today was Trapster.com‘s Pete Tenereillo, who I met last week at DEMO. Trapster is a social network for reporting speed traps. Integrating GPS, mobility, the web and social networks, it’s a pretty interesting use of technology to solve the age old problem of the speed trap. We caught up with Pete, and asked him about Trapster and some of his other projects, including Awarespot and JotYou.

Trapster operates as an application on a mobile handset or NAV device. As users spot various kinds of police traps, they touch a simple key combination (#1, for example) to notify Trapster that a trap is present. A location stamp is taken via the handset’s GPS, and the information is relayed to Trapster. As other users come to the locations of known traps, Trapster informs them by sounds played on the mobile device. The kinds of traps Trapster can warn users about are a temporary speed trap, speed camera, traffic light camera, and a known hiding place.

On the Calliflower Conference Call this morning: Pete Tenereillo, Robyn Tippins, Bill Volk, Tom Orr, Jim Courtney, Adam Somer, Jeb Brilliant, Ian Hood, Jonathan Jensen, and Sheryl Breuker.

Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.