If the rumors hold true, then the new iPhone will be sprouting a GPS antenna. Location information is already available in a crude form on the iPhone, and many other cell phones have GPS chips.

But with all the excitement surrounding iPhone 2.0, there is renewed interest in location-based applications and services. There are obvious advantages to having precise geo-coordinates in emergency, medical, and public safety oriented contact centers. But there’s another application of location data that makes sense.

Social mapping software displays the real-time position of peers in your social network on a digital map. Beyond finding and communicating with your friends at the mall, the social map concept can also be extended in a very practical way to the business world.

Let’s call it expert mapping. I’ve been blogging about the expert crowd recently. One missing part in the equation is the ability to detect expert peers based on proximity. For example, if employees were equipped with mobile devices and expert mapping software, they could be notified when co-experts working on the same customer query are nearby…and then arrange to meet non-virtually to discuss. The opportunity to spontaneously exchange ideas and solutions in this way is intriguing.

And while the in-house crowd sourcing function works perfectly well without location data, this nice-to-have feature may be at a similar point in the adoption cycle where business IM was just a few years ago.