Traditional location-based services recommend nearest objects to the user by considering their spatial proximity. However, an object not only has its distance but also has its direction which originates from the user to it. In this paper, we study direction-based spatial skyline queries (DSS queries) which retrieve nearest objects around the user from different directions. The closer object is better than or dominates the further object if they are in the same direction. The objects that cannot be dominated by any other object are included in the direction-based spatial skyline (DSS). We propose algorithms to answer snapshot queries which find objects on the DSS according to the user's current position. We also develop algorithms to support continuous queries which retrieve objects on the DSS while the user is moving linearly. Extensive experiments verify the performance of our proposed algorithms using both real and synthetic datasets. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.2.8 [D...