Telenav replies to Ask Mobile GPS with new features

This week TeleNav has unveiled new features to its off-board navigation solution GPS Navigator available notably on the US wireless operator Sprint. These new features can be understood as a direct reply to the launch of Ask Mobile GPS by InterActiveCorp (IAC) on the same wireless network one month ago (see our article here). While Telenav remains « the » de facto key navigation partner for Sprint, powering its Sprint Navigation solution, IAC includes much more than navigation to its solution (friend finder, Evite mobile, Citysearch) for the same US$9.99 .

With this new version of Telenav subscribers can now send their current location to any other mobile phone that can receive text messages, creating a quick and easy way to meet with friends or co-workers while on-the-go.

The biz Finder option offers more than 10 million Points of Interest and now users can also share addresses of favorite businesses. Before they head to a restaurant or make a reservation at a hotel, users can see how it was rated and reviewed by other people and sort by highest to lowest rating to help them make a decision, or view all of the search results on a map. TeleNav GPS Navigator also allows customers to rate restaurants themselves - directly from a mobile phone.

These new features are definitely a good move for Telenav, that was obviously working on it before the IAC launch (read our interview with TeleNav's CEO H.P. Jin here). Nevertheless TeleNav will have to find web content partners soon if it want to sustain the competition against IAC which web properties include Ask.com, Ticketmaster, Evite, Match.com, RealEstate.com - to name the most well-known - and attract 73 million unique monthly visitors in the US.