This Week in Location Based Marketing – Episode 57

"This Week in Location Based Marketing" is a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association and Untether.tv by Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan.

In the episode # 57 aired on December 26th, 2011 they're discussing:

Show highlights:
1. Brightkite shuts down service, to, er, rethink, yeah, that’s it.
2. Tennent‘s Beer parters with JiWire in Scotland
3. DDR launches ValuText powered by PlaceCast
4. Layar releases Stiktu for consumers
5. Hallmark Channel brings QR codes to TV

Product of the Week:
Zaarly: With special guest Eric Koester

Funding News:
1. Citysourced closes 1.33M Series A
2. LocationLabs buys Seeker Wireless
3. Tracks gets $1M seed round



source: LBMA

Types of Location Based Marketing

Marketers have many choices to location enable a campaign based on campaign objectives. In most of the cases Location Based Marketing campaigns are leveraging Location Based Social Media but besides that there are several different ways to promote the product or service making use of location and mobile device:

1. Location Based Social Media:  

Presence in Location Based Social Media including services like Foursquare, Facebook Places or Twitter gives possibility for a two-way communication  and direct contact with the customer. 

2. Check-in Based Contests and Games:  

Reward the user (typically with discounts or coupons) for visiting retailer locations and “checking in”. LBS  are used to verify that the consumer was at or near the retailer location at the time the consumer is checking in.

3. Geo-targeted Text and Display Advertising:  

The paid placement of a promotion or sponsorship message within mobile media that is integrated with LBS. Two types of targeting are common: 

a. User Targeting: 

Advertisers who wish to only reach users in a certain geographic area can use this type of targeting. 

b. Message Targeting: 

Presenting a different message to users based on their location. 

4. Embedded Icons:  

(Sponsored embedded advertising) the sponsorship deals can be map-embedded or on-the-page/in-app. Sponsored embedded advertising that displays without a search term but is based on end-user's interests and/or brand affinity. Icons or logos displayed in maps or augmented reality to help user determine relevant proximity/location.

5. Local Search Advertising:  

Advertising for listings of local merchant retailers. For example, CitySearch, Dex, YellowPages all fit in this category. Generally these campaigns will include some form of user targeting to show listings only to users in  a relevant geographic area. 

6. Location Triggered Notifications:  

Uses proximity information (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS or Network-based) to provide App Alerts or Messaging based on user preferences and opt-ins. These services can be automated (vs. requiring a check-in or app) and can run on both smart and feature phones. Once opted-in, alerts are delivered whenever a consumer is nearby a store, and can be tailored to a specific location (e.g. incorporating address or directions) and an offer specific to that nearby store.  

7. Location Branded Application:  

The usage of LBS technology to enhance brand-owned mobile media services. Media brands are the most ardent supporters of these apps. 

8. Click-to-X Routing:  

Routing either calls, data from broad campaigns to local call centers or localized information. For example a nationwide auto dealer might use LBS to route calls from a nationwide click-to-call campaign to the nearest  local auto dealer based upon the consumer’s precise location. 

source: Mobile Marketing Association

Podcast: Best Practices on Creating a Successful Location Based Marketing Campaign

Today I found this interesting podcast from Inbound Now with a guest Aaron Strout - co-author of Location Based Marketing For Dummies. It's really worth watching:

source: inboundnow.tv

What can we learn from LBS market forecasts?

This year I've seen release of several LBS market reports and forecasts: 

- Berg Insight

- Pyramid Research

- Strategy Analytics

- IE Market Research Corporation
- ABI Research

and other... of course like most of market reports they are massively expensive for an individual (starting from  €1500) but each of the companies provides more or less detailed summary, so:

What can we learn from them?

First of all that if there are so many new LBS market reports it means that there is the demand for it.  If companies are investigating the industry it probably means that they want to enter it. The market of location-based social networks (4SQ, Gowalla, FB Places, Twitter), and of GPS navigation is already saturated but there is an increasing need for a local search, local information, local news, local entertainment... consumers are getting spatially aware and so is the web. Significant part of web content is already geo-tagged. In fact some scientists say that web 3.0 is not semantic... Web 3.0 is spatial. 

But let's get back to the numbers. Most of disclosed data is pretty limited but it is possible to derive some knowlegde out of it.

Pyramid Research

Pyramid Research apart from its report has published video on the company's youtube channel that reveals some useful information.

We can see here that according to Pyramid Research B2C LBS market will grow from around $2.9 bn to $10.4 bn. Until 2012 the biggest growth driver will be navigation but from 2013 advertising will start bringing the highest revenues. The report highlights that sales of major GPS navigation providers like TomTom or Garmin is flattening. The competition in this sector is really intense especially when Google and Nokia are changing the business model from payment to advertising-funded. This is shifting revenue stream from navigation pool into advertising pool. We can see as well huge predicted growth in mobile advertising (from around $4 bn to $18 bn) and from the first graph it can be estimated that location-based marketing will account for around $6.5 bn out of it.
Moreover we can learn that smartphone will be the major navigation device and by 2015 dedicated PNDs will be account for less than 10% of the market and their sales is actually already declining. GPS enabled mobile phones penetration is forecast to achieve almost 100% in US due to E911 regulation  and in Europe this number will be close to 50% which is as well promising from LBS industry perspective.

ABI Research

ABI Research forecasts that US location-based analytics market is set to overcome privacy concerns and grow to reach $9bn in value (not revenues!!!) by 2016. It is very optimistic prediction but in fact it's probable as the analytics are the core provider of value in location-based advertising. The aggregation and analysis of location information to identify trends will enable new services and more effective advertising. Just to clarify it is important to state here that market value (the market capitalization plus the market value of debt) is something else than market revenues.

IE Market Research Corporation

IE Market Research Corporation - the Canadian-based provider of market intelligence released their 4Q 2011 LBS and GPS market report. The only free information that they provide are: "global market for GPS navigation and location based mobile services to rise to $15.2 billion in 2016, a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 22.7%". First of all by $15.2 bn they mean 'total spend' which is similar to 'revenue'. Than knowing revenues from 2016 and CAGR we can derive that they are predicting 2011 revenues at a level of $5.6 bn. And that would be all...

Thankfully they are revealing some more information in their 2010 report and youtube video. In 2010 they have forecast that the market will rise up tp $13.4 bn in 2014.

Comparing numbers from 2010 and 2011 we can observe that they are much less optimistic this year. In the table on the left I have compared both forecasts based on CAGR. We can see that when assuming stable growth rate, this year report predicts in 2014  $3.2bn less revenues then last year.

In the information revealed from 2010 report we can find again that they are forecasting massive growth of location-based marketing. Nizar Assanie, Vice President at IEMR said: “The future of GPS navigation and location based services is definitely in Location Enabled Search and Advertising. Location Enabled Search and Advertising will see the biggest growth in terms of market spend, growing at a CAGR of 131% over the next five years to reach $5.9 billion in 2014”.



Berg Insight


Berg Insight brings data about the European market. After a little bit of digging on the company's website I was able to find reports about European LBS market from three years in a row.

We can observe that Berg Insight was very optimistic in 2009. The company has forecast that after €214 mln in 2008, the following year will bring around €300 mln and will grow up tp €580 mln in 2014. It was a beginning of LBS not offered by mobile operators in Europe. The adoption of Location Based Social Networks was still very low. In 2010 the report verified over-optimistic predictions from the year before. The found out that in 2009 the LBS revenues were at the level of €220 mln. The market growth was minimal and Berg Insight was significantly wrong, that is why in 2010 the company was cautious and has forecast market to slow down and to reach the level of €420 mln in 2015. The latest report released just couple of day ago seems to prove the predictions. In 2010 the European market achieved €205 mln and is forecast to grow up to €435 mln in 2016. In North America, revenues are forecast to grow from US$ 620 million in 2010 to an estimated US$ 710 million in 2016.

Strategy Analytics


Finally the report of Strategy Analytics that managed to reveal the least number of information of any kind.  The forecast states that consumer and advertiser expenditure on LBS will approach $10 billion by 2016, with search advertising accounting over 50 percent.

Conclusions


What can learn from all those reports?
Knowing the industry we can easily say that the number of LBS users was growing every year. Despite that the revenues were growing very slowly and were significantly overestimated. Why is that? Although LBS are gradually achieving mainstream market acceptance there is still lack of profitable business models to monetize growing number of users. Google, Nokia and popular Location-Based Social Networks like Foursquare or Gowalla accustomed users to free services. To monetize it developers and provider are shifting LBS business models to freemium and ad-funding. There are however still several issues that need to be resolved including user privacy and geo-data pricing.

Advertising as a revenue and market value driver was mentioned in all of the reports. It significant role in the LBS market will start growing in 2012 and will probably reach in total much more than 50% of revenue stream. Parallel there will be whole new market for location-based services and marketing analytics as the companies will have to measure the rate of success of location-based ad campaigns.

From the other hand we can observe that operators are continuing to lose control over location information with the growth of GPS. In 2008 operators gained around 80% of all LBS revenue. Although now they are getting less than 50% of whole revenues the market has grown more than fivefold so they are still better off. The important question for the future is whether operators will use market opportunities to gain a bigger slice of this cake.

Up-date 21 Dec 2011: 
I found another market LBS report from Vision Gain research company:
Location Based Services 2011-2016: Monetising Opportunities and Challenges

Google LBS strategy - pushing forward the industry.

Google is pushing forward it's location-based features. Two days ago with the latest Google Maps update on Android market (v 5.12.0) it added live nearby events layer to Place pages in New York, San Francisco, Paris, Zurich, and London, making it easier for residents and tourists to find something to do while being on the move. Google seems to be accelerating it's LBSs by gradually adding new functionality...
It made me think about consequences of Google LBS strategy for the LBS market and it's players. 

Google location-based strategy

“There is something profound about location and mobile technology,” said Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of
consumer products at SXSW Interactive Festival in March 2011.  Mayer divulged as well interesting statistics - 40% of Google Maps usage is actually through mobile, which adds up to around 150 million

TomTom HD Traffic in Czech Republic - is the service entering Central and Eastern Europe?

Yesterday TomTom announced that it will launch TomTom HD Traffic service in Czech Republic. It will enable drivers to take the fastest route to their destination based on the most accurate and real time traffic information. Including Czech Republic TomTom HD Traffic will be available in 23 countries. TomTom claims that with 80 million probes (cellular and GPS) worldwide its HD Traffic service covers 99.9% of the road network, covering traffic jams on main roads as well as secondary and local roads.

Let's hope that this means expansion of HD Traffic service to Central and Eastern Europe (I'm looking forward to welcome this service in Poland :). However the market of retail PNDs is already very saturated in this region, the service is targeted as well to B2B clients with WORKsmart™ fleet management solution. In fact two days ago TomTom won 2011 GreenFleet Awards in IT Innovation category for its 'Eco system', which gives fleet managers the tools to promote and monitor eco-friendly driver behaviour, reduce fuel consumption and carbon emission = decrease costs. The system is actually based on a traffic data, therefore HD Traffic service expansion could mean one step further in the leadership in B2B fleet management solutions as well in this part of Europe. 

source: TomTom 

Google Earth hits 1 billion downloads

"Today, we’ve reached our own one billion mark: Google Earth has been downloaded more than one billion times since it was first introduced in 2005." - we can read on Google Earth blog. It's undeniable that Google changed the face of modern cartography and GIS. 6 years ago it was not that obvious but right now there are few who wouldn't agree with it. The way how people became concious about the spatial aspect of life is reflected in number of geo-visualization (geoviz) web services like Geocommons or ArcGIS online but as well in ingratiation of mapping GIS solutions in many ERPs and other business IT products.

Google Earth is not only very impressive but also very practical. With KML (Keyhole Markup Language) every computer geek in the world is able to produce content, add and analyse geographic data in a fairly easy way. (check this link).

"We’re proud of our one billion milestone, but we’re even more amazed at the way people have used Google Earth to explore the world," wrote Google Earth and Maps vice president of engineering, Brian McClendon, on Google's blog.

At Google's new OneWorldManyStories website, the company has collected stories from people worldwide about how they have used Google Earth "to follow their dreams, discover new and distant places, or make the world a better place," McClendon said.

source: Google blog

TomTom - Go Live 1535M - Social media in your satnav - is it really needed?

Announced on  Aug 29th 2011, TomTom's Go Live 1535M now expands to Canada.This model offers you dashboard tweeting and access to Yelp's recommendations. There are several useful things in there: first of all HD Traffic that is already working in 22 countries and users love it. There are Fuel Prices that help you to locate the lowest priced fuel on your route or in your area. There is Trip Advisor and Expedia to help you find and book a hotel, finally there is even a Google Local Search. 

Is it really needed?

There is one major question that comes to my mind when I look at this functionality: 


Why the hell would I use twitter and yelp while driving a car? 

When I want to use apps like this I stop my car and use my smartphone. But... there are couple of answers to that question:

• First of all, primo, you often go somewhere with passengers, so they might use it...
• Second of all, who is TomTom's target customer group for this product? According to the latest 2011 PEW Report 35% of adult Americans own a smartphone and according to Nielsen 74.6% of users of Android and I guess similar number of users of iPhones uses Google Maps (not counting in other navigation products) to get from place to place. This is clearly not a target customer group to TomTom but the rest of 65% of adult Americans are (!!!) and for them access to services like Yelp might be really useful.
• Finally it's quite an innovative product within the Personal Navigation Devices market, isn't it? TomTom known as the leader of the industry is proving its strength. They are as well getting some know-how in such a LBS solutions and probably soon you'll be able to share with friends on Facebook in a that you are stuck in a traffic jam while going to them, without being accused of lying.  

Who knos, maybe soon similar solutions will be available in build-in car navigation systems. But there is one problem Go Live 1535M is using GPRS connections to get data from the internet and it is already being phased out in some parts of US. The idea is cool. Let's hope that it's going to evolve in the right direction.

source: TomTom

New Pew Report - 28% of American adults use mobile and social location-based services.

According to the report published by Pwe Research Center on the 6th of September 2011 28% of American adults use mobile and social location-based services. That number includes all kinds of using location information on the mobile phone including getting directions or recommendations based on location of the user. That result is not surprising knowing that according to the Nielsen in the study made in July 2011 74.6% of Android users have opened the Google Maps app on their smartphone during last month.  What needs to be commented is that in 2011 only 4% of all adults use geosocial services like Foursquare or Gowalla. This means that the number hasn't change from a similar study made by Pew in 2010. Growth of those services might be driven mostly by non-american users. Geo-social services are growing extremely fast especially in Asia.

What is interesting are demographic changes. In August/September 2010 6% of men used geosocial services, while only 3% on women shared their location with others. In 2011 the gender difference is only 1%. Does it mean that women started to be less afraid of publishing their location? It seems so. In my opinion the difference comes from the fact that in August 2010 Facebook has launched it's 'Places' which increased popularity and trust to such a services among women during one year period.

Currently due to several scandals the location tracking technology in mobile devices in under constant intense scrutiny but the fact is that the market of is growing and analysts are pretty optimistic about it as well in Europe. From the report it seems that the investors should concentrate on Location Based (Aware) Services that are providing information more than on Location Based Social Networks. We'll see soon where the market will go.

source: Pew Internet

The location-based analytics market in US is set to overcome privacy concerns and grow to reach $9bn in value by 2016

According to ABI Research - technology market research company - the location-based analytics market in US will reach the $9bn in value by 2016. Currently due to several scandals the location tracking technology in mobile devices in under constant intense scrutiny but ABI but reckons this will not get in the way of the market blossoming in the future.

According to senior analyst Patrick Connolly this temporary debate will not prevent the future success of location-based services, marketing and advertising, all of which will be based on location analytics – the aggregation and analysis of location information to identify trends that will enable new services and more effective advertising.

The firm said that the “real power” of location-based services will come from a combination of analytics and advertising, when consumers can be anonymously targeted through social, geographic, physical and emotional indicators. While the location analytics market is relatively new, it has been evolving for a number of years and has been the major driver for recent location-related acquisitions by the likes of Apple, Google, Nokia, Facebook and Microsoft. Eventually, location will become commoditised and will be treated as just another piece of demographic information. Consequently, location analytics will become the core provider of value in location-based advertising.

source: research-live.com

BBC - The Beauty of Maps

Just couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about The Art of Geographic Data. It seems that BBC thought about it before me and made whole TV series about related topic...

The BBC documentary The Beauty of Maps is a fantastic TV series looking at maps in incredible detail to highlight their artistic attributions and reveal the stories that they tell. The British Museum in London is a home of staggering 4.5 million maps, most of which remain hidden away in its colossal basement. The programme delves behind the scenes to explore some amazing treasures in more detail. However apart from TV Show their is an BBC website complementing the series on-line.

The website gives us a chance to experience and explore five of the world's most beautiful old maps and discover their secrets starting with Psalter Map from 1260. But it as well presents  how we map virtual spaces and understand our world today. Click of the image to explore this website: 

I found couple of episodes of the series on You Tube:



source: BBC

Location Based Services - a little bit of theory

Fig.1.  Location Based Services

In this post I'm summing up a little bit of theory about Location Based Services (LBS) that I will use for my further academic research. In some papers, books and blog posts it is possible to see different terms interchangeably used to describe the same service: location-aware services, location-related services or location services. Nonetheless the term Location Based Services has been already used and acclaimed by most scientific and professional communities.

Location based services - definitions.


Although LBS is a fairly new domain of science one can find several definitions:

"LBSs are information services accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the location of the mobile device." [1]


"Location-based Services are IT services for providing information that has been created, compiled, selected, or filtered taking into consideration the current locations of the users or those of other persons or mobile objects."[2]

So basically LBS are using potential and capabilities of modern mobile devices, positioning technologies and mobile internet to deliver to user value added information or service based on his location. The main value of LBS for users is that they don't have to enter location information manually but its automatically collected (with positioning technologies) and used to generate personalized information. 

 Fig.2. LBS as an intersection of technologies
(Brimicombe 2002).

LBS - intersection of technologies.

LBS is a field that uses achievements of several technologies. Brimicombe in 2002 proposed to present LBS as an intersection of several technologies: Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Internet, and Mobile Devices (or New Information and Communication Technologies). This concept is pretty straightforward and doesn't need much explanation. The crucial observation is that the technology is actually going in those three directions: information (Internet), mobility (Moble Devices), location (GPS, GIS). According to statistics only in the 4Q of 2010 there where 100.9 million units of smartphone sold. And it was the first time in the history that sales of smartphones was higher than PCs [4]. Moreover already 25% of users prefer using smartphones over a computer to browse the World Wide Web and the number is growing [5]. Conclusions? Decreasing prices of modern mobile devices are pushing Information Society to go mobile. Now how about location and Geographical Information Systems? People are getting more conscious about the spatial aspect of life. Due to popularity of Google Maps they are already used to certain location-based ideas and their utilization. Maps are in fact one of the first five priorities of Google for the future. Maps are naturally linked with space and for centuries they have been used to find position and to navigate. In the most basic model users where trying to localize themselves on the paper maps and to find their way to targeted place. With the development and release to the public Global Positioning System and first PNDs (Personal Navigation Devices) users started to utilize digital mapping in a mobile way. Therefore it is not a surprise that the most used application on Android and third most used application on iPhone platform is Google Maps. Google recently disclosed that 40% of all Google Map use takes place on mobile phones. There is as well growing number of users of popular Location-Based Social Networks (LBSN). Already well known in USA, LBSNs are gaining popularity in Europe and Asia.

LBS components.


Almost all LBSs are based on components present on the figure 3. All of them create LBS infrastructure and parameters of each of them are crucial for the service to work. Those components are: Service and Content Provider, Mobile Device, Positioning Systems, and Communication Network.   

Fig.3. Basic components of LBS

Service and Content Provider

These are all companies providing service, data and that are responsible for the service request processing. Those providers are for example Location Based Social Networks or GSM operators. 

Mobile Device
These are all non-stationary devices that are tools for the user to request the needed information. For example mobile phones, smartphones, PDAs, tablets, laptops. Those devices can have build-in  or external positioning module (e.g. GPS antena).

Positioning System
Positioning of the user is of course the heart of LBS. The user position can be obtained in several ways. The most common two of them are GPS with a several meters accuracy and the mobile communication network which uses one or more cell towers to determine the position of devices with several hundred meters accuracy. The other possibility is to use the position are WLAN stations - there are companies specialized in capturing information about wi-fi location and using it for positioning. This option is possible only in the cities because of need of high network density but it can give surprisingly good accuracy of several dozen meters. Other topic is indoor navigation which can use as well wi-fi or Bluetooth for determining position inside buildings.

Communication Network

The last component is communication network which is responsible for transferring the user data and service request from the mobile device to the service provider and then the requested information back to the user.

References:

1. Virrantaus, K., Markkula, J., Garmash, A., Terziyan, Y.V., 2001. Developing GIS-Supported LocationBased Services. In:  Proc. of WGIS’2001 – First International Workshop on Web Geographical Information Systems., Kyoto, Japan. , 423–432. 

2. Axel Kupper - "Location-based Services: Fundamentals and Operation", 2005, John Wiley & Sons Ltd,

3. Brimicombe, A. J., 2002. GIS - Where are the frontiers now?. In: Proceedings GIS 2002., Bahrain, 33-45. 
4. http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/08/idc-says-100-9m-smartphones-sold-in-fourth-quarter-pcs-outsold/

5. http://www.tnblive.com/article/jul/2011/one-quarter-smartphone-owners-use-internet-web-surf

Nokia Web OVI Maps optimized for iPhone and Android.

After acquiring Navteq in 2007 Nokia seriously disturbed GPS Navigation industry. With free Nokia maps and its dominance on the market many analysts foreseen the death of the paid navigation. At that time I was working for one of the local European car navigation producers and the management was seriously concerned about the future of the company.  Then Nokia missed smartphone revolution and competitors (including Google Maps) made many improvements to their navigation apps. I always had a feeling that Nokia is not fully utilizing potential of Navteq (acquired for $8.1 billion). Although Navteq is the biggest geographic data producer in the world, Ovi Maps could never successfully force it's way through competition. 

Nokia Ovi Maps - version 3.8

The Nokia Beta Labs has just released version 3.8 of Nokia Ovi Maps. Apart from several improvements in home-screen and functionality the most important information is that Nokia Labs optimized a beta Web version of Nokia Maps for Android and iPhone. You just need to go to: m.maps.ovi.com with your smartphone to access the web app that allows for basic navigation functions like calculating routes and location your position on the map. Currently  “turn by turn” navigation and voice directions are not yet available. 

Competing on iPhone and Android market?

Obviously this functionality is not enough to compete on the smartphone navigation market but it's a good step forward. Nokia has enough resources to create great navigation product for all major platforms. Probably it's contradictory with company's business strategy but as we could observe during last couple of months Nokia's strategy was not very consistent. As I have a sentiment to Nokia (I still think that Nokia 3310 was one of the best phones ever) I would really like to see them disturbing this time smart phones navigation market.

source: Nokia

Nokia 3D World Gaze - hit or kitsch?

Nokia Beta Labs Scientists released new Symbian application  called Nokia 3D World Gaze. It actually looks very cool but it seems to be another gadget app - fancy but not really practical. 

How does it work?   

The application uses compass and GPS from your phone to locate you and direction that you are looking at. Than it gives you possibility to kind of browse the world in this direction by showing data from services such as: panoramio.com, wikinews.org, wikipedia.org, and geonames.org. For example, you are in Münster in Germany and point the phone directly south, you’re likely to see detailed information of Zurich in Switzerland, with the added bonus of being able to see geotagged media in the forms of images. If you're pointing your phone directly downwards, will show you what’s on the other side of the world. 

Useful?

Well... it's another augmented reality app that is rather cool than actually practical. One year ago everyone was talking about Layar and how they’d change the world with their augmented reality application. They didn't. This application is rather fancy gadget to present on even more fancy press conference than a useful tool. But you know what? I like fancy gadgets!!! 

source:  Nokia

TomTom's iPhone App update to version 1.8 with Multi-Stop routes

There was a new update to TomTom's iPhone App released yesterday. Version 1.8 was complement with new Multi-Stop Routes functionality. It means that you can add up-to five extra points to your route without recalculating it, so you can for example pick up friends and visit places of interest more easily – and you only need to plan your route once. 

Many bloggers (including Engadget) wrote that with this update TomTom releases HD Traffic data to iPhone. Dear bloggers TomTom HD Traffic service is available in the AppStore at least from March 2010!!!

After acquiring TeleAtlas - one the world biggest producers of geographic data - TomTom became undeniable leader on the GPS Navigation market. With it's innovative products TomTom's mission "to reduce traffic congestion for all" becomes possible.  

source: TomTom

The art of geographic data

Geographic data which we know are mostly rasters or vectors. Tables. Attributes. Numbers. All very analytic. For some people boring. But is there a beauty in it? Not a beauty for a scientist but in a general sense... Is there an art of geographic data? Aaron Koblin - artist specializing in data and digital technologies - proved that its true. In his project called 'Flight Patterns' Koblin visualized airplane traffic over North America over 24h. 

And the image of Atlanta International Airport:

We can see how the pattern is changing over time due to different time zones of east and west US.





Do you still have any doubts that geographic data can be an art?


source: Aaron Koblin

C3 Technologies - Google Earth killer?

C3 Technologies - company with its origin in the Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab AB, is now applying previously classified, military image processing technology to the development of 3D maps as a platform for new social and commercial applications. And the effect is astonishing especially knowing that according to the company its generated automatically. It is a very promising 3D data capturing and visualization solution for the navigation and geographic information systems industries.

How do they do that? 

C3 maps are assembled almost automatically using high resolution, spatial areal imaginary. So basically their planes are outfitted with photogrammetric cameras pointing every direction and capturing overlapping images. Knowing the GPS position, angles, rotation and distance between cameras their are able to almost automatically generate 3D, photo realistic, stereo-graphic view on a captured area.

Previously similar data could be captured by LiDAR - remote sensing technology that uses laser scanning to collect height or elevation data. LiDAR is however pretty expensive technology. We don't know the initial costs of the C3 technology but it seems very cost effective in use. Google Earth from the other side involves using Google SketchUp 3D modeling. That means that people are almost manually putting parts of maps together which is is very time ineffective. 

Nokia OVI Maps 3D 

C3 Technologies has partnered Nokia to deliver the first usable version of its mapping data with Ovi Maps 3D in the begging of 2011. Currently it features 20 cities with limited functionality: pan, zoom, changing view angle. Company claims however to have 100 city models already produced with 22 more scheduled for Spring 2011. With this functionality its just a gadget to play and to check the possibilities of C3 technology. But does it mean that Nokia will use this data in OVI Maps? I am looking forward to here something about it.  

Google Earth killer?

Definitely not yet. The potential of Google Maps and Google Earth is not rooted in 3D view but in data that they have collected and interoperability with open standards (like KML). Row 3D without data about roads, streets, POIs ect. is not very useful.

But let's concentrate on 3D view itself and compare two products: Google Earth and Nokia Ovi Maps 3D. I order to do that I decided to choose Sagrada Família, one of the most architecturally sophisticated church in the world, situated in Barcelona, Spain, designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí in early XX century.

We can observe that C3 model is much more photo realistic. Shadows and amount of details is really impressive. We can see however that automatically generated 3D geometrical objects like towers or rooftops of building on the second plan are not perfectly represented and Google Earth has advantage in this field. There is as well difference is representation of trees and ground details between two models. In Google Earth they are flat and in C3 they are convex, however not really well represented. 

I'm looking forward to see some more commercial applications of C3 3D maps and how they will develop. Both Google Earth and C3 models have their pros and cons. Maybe in a future we  will witness fusion of both technologies.


source:  C3 Techologies, Nokia OVI Maps 3D

Garmin to acquire Navigon

On Tuesday 14th of June, 2011 Garmin - one of the most popular sellers of navigation and smartphone GPS software - announced that Navigon’s shareholders have signed an agreement for a Garmin subsidiary to purchase Germany-based Navigon. “This acquisition is a great complement to Garmin’s existing automotive and mobile business. Navigon has invested significantly in the European automotive OEM business, and we feel that we can rapidly expand our automotive OEM footprint and capabilities through this transaction,” said Cliff Pemble, Garmin’s president and COO. “With Navigon, we are also acquiring one of the top-selling navigation applications for the iPhone and Android platforms – something that we expect will help drive revenue for the combined company going forward. Combining Navigon’s and Garmin’s strength also improves our competitiveness and standing particularly in Europe.” Garmin said that Navigon will continue to operate as a subsidiary of Garmin and that the deal is still subject to regulatory approvals. 

A Garmin spokeswoman at the company’s Olathe headquarters declined to reveal what the company paid for Navigon, which is 90 percent owned by General Atlantic Partners, a private U.S. equity firm. Financial Times Deutschland reported this month that Garmin was considering paying more than $70 million.

Some analysts saw Navigon as a struggling company with just 5 percent to 7 percent of the European market. (It holds about 20 percent of the market in Germany.) By purchasing the company, Garmin perhaps saves Navigon and adds incrementally to its own sales in Europe. Garmin also was enticed by Navigon’s popular applications for iPhone and Android smartphones.

Garmin, Navigon and Dutch manufacturer TomTom, the European leader, have all seen their prospects hurt by the smartphone. Many consumers are forgoing purchases of handheld GPS devices and relying on applications in their phones instead. That has meant a shrinking market for GPS device makers, which have begun to battle for contracts to provide the devices built into the dashboards of cars and trucks. Garmin also has found rich markets in devices made for boaters, bicyclists and people looking to incorporate navigation into their athletic training regimens.

Navigon was founded in 1991, two years after Garmin. The German company’s first signature software product debuted in 1996 as Autopilot, later named AutoPilot 2000. The company continued as chiefly a maker of software until 2008, when it began to sell its own navigation devices. But the timing proved poor with the spread of navigation-enabled smartphones, and Navigon quickly pulled its devices from the U.S. market. Worldwide, Navigon has more than 400 employees. Garmin has about 7,000 workers and more than half the American GPS market. TomTom, its chief competitor, has just less than half the European market and a fourth of U.S. sales.

source: Engadet, The Kansas City Star

GeoCommons 2.0 - Web based mapping platform

Web based mapping platform GeoCommons launched it’s 2.0 version yesterday. GeoCommons is the internet service where users can share, transform, visualize and mash-up geograohical information. The new version of the platform includes HTML5 display, a visualization engine GeoCommons says is capable of displaying hundreds of thousands of data points, web based editing, time-release views of mapped data and many other changes.

Why to use?

GeoCommons is a online free application that allows to use some of functionality of traditional GIS desktop software. It allows to:

• design, make and visualize multi-layer maps
• perform temporal visualization
• share over popular platforms like Facebook, Twitter ect.
• embed maps on a blog or website
• geo-coding (by uploading CSV speadsheet)
• convert data (e.g. Shapefile to KML !!! )
• filter geographical data
• open access to geographical data
• access open API for developers

And what's best about it. You can do it in 10 minutes!!!

Drawbacks?

One need to stated as well disadvantages of the project. Fist of all the unknown accuracy of the data uploaded by users and other sources such as government agencies or non-governmental organizations. The only way to estimate accuracy of the data is to rate it, which for many purposes is basically insufficient. Secondly the data uploaded by users are open to others, so performing some business analysis is impossible.

Although there are pros and cons the tool is definitely worth exploring.   

Quick example: Map of Royal Wedding Tweets in 2011:

Learn more about GeoCommons:

source: GeoCommons

Nuclear power mapped by BBC

"Twenty-five years on, the disaster at Chernobyl casts a long shadow over the nuclear industry, which has been compounded by recent events at Fukushima in Japan. Nuclear power had a rapid rise in the decades after World War II, but the growth in reactor numbers has levelled off. Use the map and audio commentary below to see how civil nuclear power has spread across the globe, and hear about the challenges it faces."

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13159407, 2011)

BBC presents very simple but interesting flash based map on their website.

source: BBC

AIDA 2.0 – 3D, Interactive Dashboard Car Navigation

AIDA 1.0

In 2009, MIT and Audi researchers created AIDA, which stands for Affective Intelligent Driving Agent. The first generation of the project produced a somewhat creepy and 'very friendly'  in-car robot. AIDA 2.0 - the second generation of the project looks however  more like the product of a science fiction movie. It uses 3D graphics projectors to display interactive map on a dashboard of a car! 

AIDA 2.0 identifies goals of the driver? 

AIDA 2.0 is meant to be a highly intuitive navigation technology that using the current location-destination-waypoint model and analyzing drivers behavior will identify goals the driver would like to achieve. That means it tries to help you locate food you like when you're hungry, movies you might like to see, or places you might like to shop. It will be as well connected will social networks so that the driver will be informened not only about places nearby that may be of particular interest but as well about people, friends and family.

AIDA 2.0

AIDA 2.0 learns your habits? 

AIDA 2.0 allows for a gesture controlled display that also handles the stereo and climate controls. It’s designed to learn your driving habits, preferred destinations, and typical routes. It offers you advice for your trip by determining your objectives and goals. It learns things like your favorite restaurants and activities and will make suggestions to you based upon your favorites. The more you use the system, the better it becomes. It “learns” more about what you want to do, see, and where you want to go. The display on the dashboard is optimized to help you achieve those driving goals. It takes into account real time weather and road conditions, including traffic delays. Using 3D graphics and a detailed map of the surrounding business, residential, and shopping districts, AIDA 2.0's truly stellar feature is the virtual display: it uses the whole of the car's dashboard and side mirrors to display and relay information.

Things that we used to watch in the sci-fi movies are now existing technologies. AIDA 2.0 is aiming to redefine the way we look at navigation systems.  We will see if the concept succeed.

source: moto.pl, motorauthority.com,

Sudan's referendum 2011 - Analyzing Social Media

Bronwyn Agrios, Esri technical marketing, discusses the use of crowdsourced information and how to analyze its value in space and time. It's an interesting example of using Tweets to analyze global information flow.




source: Esri

Loopt - showing location-based Groupon deals

Loopt is a checkin app founded in 2005.  The company produces mobile Location-based services that allows you to discover new places, download coupons, and share your location with selected friends. Not a bad idea but on the saturated market of location based social networks and some functional issues (spamming text messages) the Loopt was not a big success. 

Location-Based Services with Groupon?

Loopt seems to be trying everything in order to survive in a saturated space. It is now partnered up with Groupon Now! in Chicago in order to provide Loopt users with locationally relevant realtime deals around them. Notifications of users will work even when app is not open, and the time sensitive Groupon deals will also appear on place pages within Loopt, so users can see and share with friends their favorite relevant deals. Currently the specific Loopt service is only available in Chicago but the company is planning to spread it nationwide. 

Loopt has basically beat Groupon to bringing this Location-Based Service to its own app, while with Groupon users still have to type their zip code to get more locationally relevant deal notifications. But Groupon recently acquired Pelago, the company that have created Whrrl so their are probably working on a similar functionality right now. 

According to Groupon 14% of subscribers interact with daily deal push notifications. So strategic partnership between Groupon and Loost seems to be mutually beneficial. But one can't help but wonder when Groupon will apply this same technology to its own mobile app, what exactly that will mean for Loopt long term?

source: TechCrunch, Loopt

Zaarly - realtime, local marketplace

Zaarly is a web and mobile service that connects buyers and sellers in a localized market place. In other words it links people who want to buy something with those who want to provide it. Zaarly was officially lunched to the public today. 

Start-up

Zarly is a story of an incredible start-up. The company’s founding team built the prototype for Zaarly in February 2011 at Startup Weekend Los Angeles. The company won this competition, raised 1 mln dollars funding from business angels and investors,  including Ashton Kutcher, Felicis Ventures, Paul Buchheit, Bill Lee, Naval Ravikant and Lightbank and then debuted a test run at SXSW in March, where Zaarly processed over $10,000 in transactions in less than 48 hours.

How does it works?

Basically you post what you’re looking for using mobile application, how much you’re willing to pay for it and how soon you need it (for example "Tickets for a concert in 90 minutes for 100$". Zaarly will then share your request in the local community through the platform, as well as Twitter and Facebook. People or businesses nearby can access and see your request and then anonymously message each other to complete the transaction of delivering the cupcakes you want. Sellers bid for the tasks, and the buyer chooses the best one, with Zaarly connecting the two via an anonymous Twilio-powered phone number. You can use cash or Zaarly’s integrated credit card payment system to pay for the transaction.

What's innovative about it?

It is actually the first time when buyers are in charge of what they want to buy, how much do they want to pay for it and how soon do they want it. So basically it is the first service based on buyer driven model instead of seller driver model. It's an innovating way of approaching the market. It creates new way of looking at a time value of money: How much are you willing to pay for something to be delivered in 5 min versus if' need to wait for it for 3 couple of hours.Time will show if consumers will go for it...

Learn more how Zaarly works:

Presentation of Zaarly on LA Startup Weekend:


source: Techcruch, Zaarly

The Last Episode of Geospatial Revolution

There is the new Geospatial Revolution episode available online. The episode title is Mapping Power to the People and it presents use cases of GIS to help people all around the world. Unfortunately it the last episode of the series. We are waiting for similar projects!!!




source: http://geospatialrevolution.psu.edu