Isaac Daniel, whose Global Positioning System (GPS) sneakers gained worldwide attention in 2007, has announced the company’s newest GPS shoe,  Blue GPS. The new version of the GPS shoe is being billed as a social networking shoe. Called Blue GPS because of their Bluetooth capability, the new shoes enable the wearer to be tracked by friends and family through their cell phones. The wearer simply inputs up to five phone numbers of family/friends into his cell phone (eventually this capability will be able to be expanded to up to 20 people) and pushes a button on the shoe to activate a link with those on his list. The Blue GPS can be enabled with all cellular phones.

“This is an important step in the progression of our company and product line,” said Isaac Daniel, chairman, IDG (Isaac Daniel Group). “This is an affordable price point for consumers and a fun product to have. People will be able to see where their friends are — and have a better idea of estimated arrival time — without having to call them. And, because the wearer doesn’t have to be talking on the phone while driving, it will definitely improve safety.”

Daniel, on a recent business trip to Europe, tested the phone with various friends and business associates in the United States, Europe and Africa.

“I inputted several names worldwide and activated the link,” he said. “They were able to track me via their cell phones and even on Facebook. That’s why we refer to the Blue GPS as social networking with your feet.”

In addition to the button linking the shoe and cell phone users, another button can be pressed for an ‘E911′ call. When that button is pushed, a signal is sent to IDG’s monitoring division, ID Conex, which then attempts to contact the wearer. If the shoe wearer does not respond, ID Conex then alerts the proper authorities.

Daniel also emphasised that the original GPS shoes — using IDG’s patented Quantum Satellite Technology — are currently being field tested for future military and healthcare industry usage.

Blue GPS is expected to retail for about $150 when it hits stores in Latin America this fall.

Now that is some Extra Ordinary Extra intelligent footwear one can buy!!

But Yotify offers much more than the search giants’ current alert tools, argues Ron Bouganim, CEO and cofounder of Branchnext, the San Francisco startup behind Yotify. Those alert tools, Bouganim says, are merely an afterthought for these huge companies, and they do not take into account important Web 2.0 developments, such as social networking.

“We want to create a richer experience,” Bouganim says.

When users sign up for an account, they are given a personal profile page that lists, stores, and displays what they’ve searched for and where. That information can be made public as well, so that friends can share the results and help refine the search. This could be particularly useful for group projects such as apartment hunting with roommates, for example.

Meanwhile, Yotify is making it a point to closely integrate with the major social-networking sites, most notably Facebook and LinkedIn. “If people want to search through Facebook using our technology, we want to let them do it,” claims Bouganim.

Another distinguishing characteristic of Yotify versus Google Alerts or Yahoo Alerts is its focus on shopping. Whereas Google Alerts is primarily concerned with retrieving news and other hard information, Yotify is setting up as more of a sales tool for its partner sites, which include general retailers such as Shopping.com as well as a host of niche players.

In this respect, Yotify does go above and beyond what Google Alerts currently provides. Say a user wants to buy a black futon, for example. The important aspect of the search is not that the user obtain the futon immediately, but that it’s a certain price. Yotify will continually monitor its partner sites, then notify the user when a black futon is available at that particular price.

The main problem with Yotify is that, as of now, it only scans a small portion of the Web: users can only search among Yotify’s partner sites. While the search engine has partnered with many key websites, such as Craigslist, the New York Times, and eBay, it certainly does not have the breadth of a search giant such as Google or Yahoo.