T-Mobile USA Inc. is featuring the new local discovery GPS application Sherpa that was developed for HTC's new myTouch 3G with Google.

Powered by mobile technology company Geodelic, the app lets Android smartphone users access locally relevant information, including location-based advertising, offers and content from brands. The more it is used, the more it customizes itself to consumers' tastes, learning their likes and dislikes so it can prioritize recommended and relevant local retailers, restaurants and attractions.

"We've had the World Wide Web for the last 15 years or so, and it's been transformative, but the Web designed for PCs doesn't understand or care where you are," said Rahul Sonnad, founder/CEO of Geodelic, Santa Monica, CA.

"We think something is going to emerge in parallel to the wired Web that will become equally important for consumers and businesses -- the ?Global Mobile Web, which is about hyperlocality and browsing the real world," he said. "Being able to browse your surroundings will be transformational in the the same way the wired Web was for a lot of companies.

"Sherpa provides consumers with relevant access to the best information via an effortless discovery mechanism -- the app automatically figures out what's around you and what you might be interested in, based on your context and where you are, we pull relevant information and aggregate content consumers might want."

Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA is the No. 4 carrier in the U.S. based on number of subscribers.

In August, T-Mobile will start selling the latest Android smartphone, HTC's new T-Mobile myTouch 3G with Google, the successor to the G1.

Both the myTouch 3G and the G1 run on Google's Android operating system.

The price point will be $199 with a two-year contract, which is the same as the Palm Pre on Sprint and the 16-gig iPhone on AT&T.

Founded last year, Geodelic has secured $3.5 million in funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, where the company was incubated, and Shasta Ventures.

Mr. Sonnad's previous company, thePlatform, acquired by Comcast in 2006, services the majority of large video publishers on broadband and wireless platforms, including Hulu, Verizon Wireless, Helio, CNBC, CBS and ABC News.

Created by Geodelic in partnership with T-Mobile, Sherpa is a local discovery application that learns a consumer's favorite types of locations, businesses and preferences over time.

Search operates on a consumer-initiated pull model, while discovery is a push mechanism based on consumers' past browsing behavior.

By combining a consumer's location and interests with other contextual information such as time of day, Sherpa aggregates and presents contextually relevant, location-based information about the businesses that surround a consumer at any given moment.

While many local search applications feature store locators, Geodelic's approach is to provide additional personalized information that consumers want while they are at these locations, such as movie reviews, menus or promotional offers.

Sherpa uses an engine called GENIE -- Geodelic ENgine for Interest Evaluation -- that automatically learns a consumer's favorite locations and lifestyle behavior.

If a consumer eats out more than they shop, it modifies itself and tailors the experience to begin showing more restaurants and fewer retail stores.

No matter where a consumer goes, whether they are traveling or exploring their neighborhood, Sherpa prioritizes recommended locations and presents them on the consumer's handset.

Just as a browser allows Internet users to surf the Web, the Geodelic application serves as a "geobrowser" for consumers, letting them browse their environs through an interface optimized for a mobile experience.

Geodelic's technology searches the Web, gathering the best public and proprietary information from sites like Yelp, MenuPages, CitySearch, and a large number of other sources to supply the content based on consumers' current location and interests.

The application's learning capability allows it to then automatically organize a consumer's environment by what is most important to them.

In addition to delivering customized content to consumers, Geodelic's application also offers business owners a means to communicate with patrons who are at their location.

Geodelic provides a platform for navigating both the physical nature and informational content of their business.

Sherpa offers marketers opportunities for promotion, lead generation and local advertising, letting them to connect with consumers on their smartphones.

"We get consumers' location and context, then we return points of interest, with paid advertisements along the bottom of the screen based on proximity to a specific location category," Mr. Sonnad said. "We enable mobile retail experiences and contextual ad targeting.

"On the ad-buying side, it's fairly analogous to Googlel Ad Words, but instead of bidding on words, advertisers bid on location categories," he said. "This will become a critical supplement to a brand's Web site.

"This gives businesses a tool to create a dialog with customers on site, for example if you're at a hotel, casino, theme park or restaurant, the business is able to communicate with its customers."

The incredible adoption rate of smartphones and advancements in GPS and location technology, combined with a plethora of location-specific information, is helping to create a new type of Web -- the ?Global Mobile Web,' according to Geodelic.

The company claims that this new medium will not only change the way we create, access and navigate information, but let smartphone users discover what is happening in the world around them without needing to search.

Geodelic will offer Sherpa on Android Market later this summer.

Similar applications that support advanced location technologies and a mobile browsing experience will be available later this year for other devices and platforms, including the iPhone 3G S.

"The iPhone 3G really signaled to us something very transformational, with a combination of factors including GPS in addition to mobile browsing, flat-rate data plans so consumers are happy to use the mobile Web," Mr. Sonnad said.

"The iPhone put a stake in ground, but now it's a bigger industry trend, with Android and Palm and others offering accurate GPS, mobile browsing and flat-rate 3G data, which will radically change the way people experience mobile phones and discover information," he said.

Geodelic hints that its Sherpa application is but the tip of the iceberg indicating a larger trend.

"Our prediction here is that something's going to happen next year that will be similar to what happened with the Web -- by ?98 every shoe-shine outfit had a Web site," Mr. Sonnad said. "Once mobile penetration gets a little higher, everywhere consumers go they'll pull their phone out.

"Once you start doing this, it's such an easy and obvious thing that businesses are going to want to do, at some point in the near future it's going to be a land rush," he said.