Windows Phone 8 - Offline Maps for everyone

Microsoft announced their new operating system Windows Phone 8. Surely it’s not gonna change attitudes of most Apple believers  and users of Android, but one thing is undeniable, starting from Windows Phone 7 it looks really great. 

Partnership of Microsoft and Nokia brings first results for other producers of Windows OS devices – offline Nokia maps with be available for all WP8 devices. It means that you will have access to free turn-by-turn navigation all over the world. It is important news as well for all lover of location-based apps. In combination with Nokia Location Platform now developers will be able to build at least some functionality that will work offline. 

Good news.

source: Microsoft

Nokia - to be or not to be? Solution: Location!!!

Two days ago there was thrilling news announced - Nokia is planning to cut 10,000 jobs to return to profitability level. The cuts are part of a plan to significantly reduce operating costs and sharpen the strategy. The Finnish company has had a rough ride in recent years. Although Lumia and partnership with Microsoft is starting to bring some results Nokia is too big and too slow. 

Location-Based Services – bright future

Although they are cutting costs apparently everywhere, there two areas where Nokia is still investing – Lumia and Location-Based Services!!! This is a great news for everyone passionate about geospatial tech stuff. Why? First of all because Nokia owns Navteq – one of the world biggest mapping data and solutions provider. Secondly because partnership with Microsoft gives Nokia access to great potential and tradition of leading World programmers. I know that it’s a big simplification but it’s truth.

Nokia Location Platform

The big recent indicator that Nokia wants to go deeply into location business was launching Nokia’s Location Platform that effectively is a location API that consists of a suite of client- and server-side programming interfaces that allow to develop interactive applications with maps and map-related services. 

We hope to see the first effects soon.

source: freesoftwaredown

Apple vs. Google - Mapping World War

Just over a month ago I've been writing that I feel in my guts that Apple is about to launch their own mapping solution. Two days later first leaks came out that it's gonna happen. Last Monday Apple finally announced its own version of Maps for iOS 6 which will replace the Google service on its smartphones. Google Maps has been present on iPhone since the beginning. Moreover they were the second most used app on iOS, just after Facebook and iTunes...

So why did Apple ditched Google's mapping service?

When you don't know why the answer is always easy - for money!!! Revenues from local search and ads are the fastest growing in the mobile advertising segment. We need to understand that both Apple and Google have huge databases about all of us. Adding to this data, spatial context puts it all into totally new level. The vision of targeting customers depending on their exact geographic location and offering to advertisers this unique possibility makes it worth going the way that Apple gone.

Will it affect Google?  

CNN Money reports that  iPhone and iPad to account for 2% of Google's 2012 revenue."Google will generate about $4.5 billion in gross mobile revenue in 2012, the lion's share ($4 billion) from search ads and the rest ($500 million) from display" said  Gene Munster, analyst from Piper Jaffray. Maps are minor source of this revenue but could mean something bigger. Then we think "maps" and technology, we think "Google" - Mountain View giant managed to change the world of web and mobile mapping, in fact it it added a new spatial dimension to everyday live of everyone connected to the Internet. But Google didn't have enough incentive to develop and monetize their mapping products...

Competition is good... Good for end user... Good for us. We could see the first signs of it when Google announced first changes to Google Maps just before Apple conference.

Bing Maps now uses live traffic and geocoding from Nokia

Apparently the collaboration of Microsoft and Nokia goes beyond Lumia smartphones. After the latest up-date the  - now uses Nokia's live traffic and geocoding algorithms. Bing Maps can now offer the same traffic information that is already available at Nokia Maps in 24 countries (Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, UK and US).

Why is it a good news?

This info is really important for all Bing Maps users from one basic reason - Nokia is the owner of Navteq - the biggest mapping data player on the planet. Not only their traffic data is one of the most accurate but also their geocoding algorithms (taking latitude and longitude information and connecting that to a readable address) will surely offer better routes and directions for Microsoft-mapping service users.

But this not the most important conclusion... the most important thing is that those two giants are teaming up to build better location-based services and apps. With their financial potential and Nokia's announcement of the new  Nokia’s Where Platform, can bring LBS to whole new level. I'm looking forward to see where it will go!!!

Nokia Where Platform video:

source: Nokia Conversations, The Verge

Apple's mapping puzzles

What will Apple do with its $97.6bn reserves? Maybe they're own mapping solution... From couple of years Apple started collecting
pieces of a perfect mapping puzzle. 

First piece

First in mid 2009 Cupertino quietly acquired Placebase - Maps API company. Then, founder and CEO of Placebase, Jaron Waldman, started working at Apple on a new “Geo Team”, presumably helping to integrate Placebase mapping technologies into future Apple products. At the time, there was a growing rift between Apple and Google due to Android, resulting in then-CEO Eric Schmidt resigning from Apple's board. It was believed at the time that PlaceBase might serve as some substitute for Google mapping data used in iOS's Maps app. Well... it didn't but Placebase Geo Team worked on something new and in August 2011 they've filed a patent of so called 'schematic maps' which is a technology of smart generalization of map data. 

Second piece

A year later, Apple acquired another mapping company - Poly9, a Canadian start-up that specialized in connecting mapping data with other data sources to create unique map-based visualizations. Poly9 was mostly known from it's Poly9 Globe project which was JavaScript-based 3D globe similar to Google Earth but available on web browsers. Media immediately started to speculate about Apple Earth of Google Earth killer but we didn't heard nothing about Poly9 from that time.

Third piece

In October 2011 Apple has acquired a third mapping company C3 Technologies - which specializes in spectacular 3D mapping based on SAAB's military technology - you can read more about it >>here<<. In generally it gives different experience than Google Earth because it's all generated from photorealistic aircraft images and it gives Cupertino data and technology to create something truly mind-blowing (at least from Apple worshipers perspective). This was as well a sign to Nokia and Windows Phone as the Finnish giant is using C3 maps in they're 3D web maps. 

Where is it all going?

How and when Apple will put this technology into iOS users' hands is still a mystery. But it's clear that Apple intends to put the pieces of technology it has acquired so far together to do for mapping what it has done for voice control with Siri. Meanwhile despite all rumors, iOS 5 launched in October 2011 is still be default equipped with Google's mapping service and Apple had recently extended its agreement with Google.

source: Ars Technica, Mashable, 9to5mac, iMore

To pay or not to pay - Google Maps dilemma

Back in 2010 when we were playing with friends doing some mapping mash-ups, I've asked one of them "Why are you using Open Street Maps when you have Google Maps for free?", and he said "What if one day Google starts charging for its Maps...", I thought - impossible... until October 2011 when Google announced that starting from January 2012 they will start charging for usage of they're mapping service. 

How much?

Sites were offered Google Maps Premium - a paid for service starting from $10,000 a year, which also offers branded maps and custom uses of Google Maps. If they opt not to pay for this, fees are $4 per 1,000 page loads over the 25,000 per day - or  $10 per Street View load over the 10,000 per day.

'Google Maps will remain free for most users. Only the top 0.35% of sites will be affected by the new pricing structure if they continue to exceed the usage limit of 25,000 map loads per day' said Google spokesman Sean Carlson. But James Fee Chief Evangelist for WeoGeo don't agree with that: “Google says it will affect a very small number of users, but I have heard it will touch 30 or 40 percent of people who really depend on maps for their business. It could cost you tens of thousands of dollars a month.” 

Who will gain on this change?

Since this announcement starting from the beginning of 2012 many services ditched Google Maps for other products. This can in fact be good for other mapping solutions providers. According to comScore, Google Maps had 65 million users in February 2012, a 16 percent increase from the year before. MapQuest had 35 million hits, a 13 percent decrease. Microsoft’s Bing Maps came in third with 9 million users, an 18 percent increase. OpenStreetMaps didn't generate much web traffic, but it seems that it's going to change soon.

Time to say goodbye! 

Starting from February 2012 Foursquare said to give up Google Maps and switched to OpenStreetMap. Apple’s iOS version of iPhoto also gave up Google Maps, turned to the OpenStreetMap. In March Wikipedia has dropped Google Maps for OpenStreetMaps as well. The pricing was "significantly higher than I think anyone anticipated," said Russell Cook founder and CEO of AllTrails - a big social network for outdoors enthusiasts, that partnered with National Geographic Maps and started moving away from Google. In March TripAdvisor quietly switched from Google Maps to Bing Maps, that also charges for using it's API but probably it managed to undercut Google by a sufficient margin to make it worth changing.

Give a thing, and take a thing, to wear the Devil's gold ring.

"Deep down I think the developer community knew that at some point the Google APIs they were using would stop being free," Russell Cook said, "but I don't think they ever expected the price gouging. My personal opinion is that Google has every right to charge for the services they are providing, but their recent actions have been very short sighted". In fact Google was one of few mapping services that offered usage if their data for free. It's not the only service Google charges for - using Google's office services at a corporate level is already a paid-for service - but it's among the first times the site has offered something for nothing then gone back.

The Google Maps API product manager, Thor Mitchell, commented on the change: "We understand that the introduction of these limits may be concerning," he stated. "However, with continued growth in adoption of the Maps API, we need to secure its long-term future by ensuring that even when used by the highest volume for-profit sites, the service remains viable."

Conclusions

In fact for most of us it doesn't change much. For regular users Google Maps will be for free. Now Google has a difficult task to inspire a new class of Maps apps whose businesses aren't dependent on free data, that might be beneficial for the end-user. Meanwhile the competition on the market will surely work for the favor of all of us... and especially for OpenStreetMaps, whose  founder - Steve Coast has recently landed a job at Microsoft, that is already supporting the OSM project with map data and other resources.


sources:
ReadWriteWeb, TechSpot,

!Waytag - different concept of location

What else can be done with location? There are hundreds of GPS navigation brands and location-based services that are adding value to users based on their geographic position. According to web and mobile standards when we want to find a particular location we need to type in address or geographic coordinates, which might be very inconvenient on the small screen of a mobile device.

!Waytag? What is it all about?

South African start-up !Waytag come across this problem and proposed a simple solution similar to web domain concept. The coordinates of world wide web are IP addresses but in order to do it more user friendly industry introduced domain names, so for that you don't need to type into your browser for example 173.194.67.147 but www.google.com. !Waytag applies the same concept to geo-location position assigning a user a chosen, unique ‘Waytag’ to a specific coordinates or address creating a permanent location identifier that moves with an end-users wherever they are. The user creates it, names it, updates it, manages it, can delete it and chooses who to share their !waytag with. The idea is that the user is always in complete control of the information associated with their !waytag. Take a look at this video to get a better picture of what !Waytag is:

Good concept but how to use it?

The idea is that your !waytag moves wherever you go. So when you order a pizza you don't need to give your current address, you just give your updated !waytag and it's gonna be delivered right where you are. Possibilities especially for e-commerce seems to be endless but will anybody use it? Apparently yes! Over two years the number of !waytags exceeded 17,5 million in 100 countries. It seems that they've as well found a way to monetize their idea as just 3 weeks ago they've signed a four year agreement with TomTom, to use their map data, POIs and geocoding in 205 countries. 

"The location-based service industry is exploding with innovative new applications like Waytag," said Nuno Campos, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for TomTom Licensing. "TomTom is excited to partner with a location-based services pioneer making it much easier for consumers to share and enjoy services based on their location information."

Bright future?

Most of us may not have ever considered questioning the usability and efficiency of street addresses or geographic coordinates. !Waytag might change it. To do it they obviously need scale and partners. TomTom  makes them one step closer to the goal but what !Waytag really needs is working API (coming soon) so that their product could be implemented in wide variety of LBS solutions. In my opinion the company, that currently has a staff of six and is funded by the initial shareholders and a few business angels, has no profitable business model and is waiting to be acquired by one of industry leaders like Instagram 2 weeks ago. Nonetheless the idea has a really big potential to became the industry standard. 

source:

GPSbusinessnews, Memeburn, TomTom

The Location Business Summit Europe, Amsterdam - May 2012

I'm glad to say that Geo-awesomeness blog became a media partner of The Location Business Summit Europe 2012. It's the must attend conference for the location and mobile marketing industry in Europe! 


It is a fact that many companies are struggling to monetize their Location-Based Services and this might be the answer to many problems due to exchange of knowledge and networking with top Mobile/Geo/LBS professionals. 

Speakers from companies including Google, Starbucks, Heineken, PayPal, Vodafone, Nokia and Living Social among others seem to be enough to encourage you to join. 


Additionally quote GEOAWESOME and get €100 off any ticket price.

Location-Based Gaming

Traditional open-air (location-based) games like Hide-and-seek or Capture the flag brought hours of fun to many of us when we were kids. Then consoles and computer games came along and suddenly the only location you played in was the living room. Today integration of smartphones and geo-location is about to change it and combine the real and virtual worlds. Although Mobile Location-Based Gaming is an area where developers have just begun to scratch the surface in terms of what’s possible, it is one of the fastest growing and interesting trends among LBS.

What is it?

Mobile Location-Based Gaming  is linking elements of traditional open-air field games (e.g. Hide-and-seek, Paper Chase) with new technologies available on mobile devices including positioning technologies, wireless fast speed internet, image recognition and augmented reality among others. In the era of integrating everything with everything is hard to say which location-based service is still a game and which is just using elements of gamification. For example Foursquare is build around the idea that users receive points and badges after broadcasting their location to a social network, but it is rather Location Sharing Service than what we usually call a game. The other Location-Based Social Network SCVNGR works by directing players/customers to certain areas/venue and ask to perform a certain task e.g. to take a picture, record a video and upload it to the game platform in order compete with other players.  Even the popular Angry Birds has begun to introduce location-based elements, allowing the option for players to compete with one another on a unique leader board tied to location. 


What is there on the market?

There are however platforms with which we won't have problems to clearly define as Location-Based Games. Among games available on the market I categorised them in the following way:

• Treasure hunts (e.g.  Geocaching)
• Territory defense and claiming (e.g. Please Stay Calm, Shadow Cities, Fleck, MyTown, GeoWars, Life is Crime)
• Scavenger hunts (e.g. City Secrets,  SCVNGR, Bounty Island, iSpy)
• Role playing game (e.g. GeoHunters)
• Mixed themes (e.g. Parallel Kingdom)

MyTown, for example, has much over 4 million active users. Most users of the Monopoly-style game spend on average more than an hour on the app a day. Rather than just check in at a place, a player can “buy” the venue and collect rent from other players who check into the same place. Booyah is trying to get players more involved with new features like in-game purchasing, where players can buy power-ups, and all this seems to be working.


The other popular type of Location-Based Gaming are scavenger hunts. It is the best way of tying a game in with a real-world experience is what location-based games are all about for Greg Gerber, founder of iSpy. His iPhone game is based on the children’s game of “I spy”. A player takes a picture of a real world object, say, a statue in a city and uploads it to the game. Then, other players take on the task of finding that statue (they get an approximate location of the geotagged photo—a circle is projected onto a map, and it contains the object within a radius of a few city blocks). When they do find it, they take a picture of it with the cell phone’s camera and upload it, thus “solving” the game. 


Where is it all going?


It is surely interesting field with a huge potential but all depends on profitable business models. Foursquare for example although rapidly growing is struggling to monetize the user database. Justin Beck - one of the founders of Parallel Kingdom says that in-app purchases and the fact that user spend on average fairly long time playing everyday creates profitable revenue source. We'll see soon where it is all going. 

Location-Based Services - Industry Standards

This is one those boring however necessary posts. Location-Based Services are a convergence of heterogeneous technologies, built from several separate components. In order to sustain operability, interoperability and reliability of all those systems, which highly important from user point of view the industry introduced several standards.The organizations that play significant roles in the development of LBS standards are the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). In addition to these, there are several other organizations that provide important components of the LBS standards infrastructure.  

Open Mobile Alliance

The most important specification that OMA has come up with is MLP (Mobile Location Protocol). MLP enables LBS applications to interoperate with wireless network regardless of its interfaces (GSM, CDMA etc.) and positioning methods. MLP defines a common interface that facilitates exchange of location information between the LBS application and location servers in wireless networks. It also supports the privacy of user providing access to location information only to those who are authorized users. Hence OMA is the key enabler of mobile service specification standards that support the creation of interoperable end-to-end mobile services.

Open Geospatial Consortium
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is an international standards organization responsible for the development of standards for geospatial- and location-based services. To complement Location Interoperability Forum’s (LIF) advanced MLP services, OGC has come up with OpenLS Services that addresses the geospatial interoperability issues. Key services handled by OpenLS specification are:

• coordinate transformation, 
• Web Mapping, 
• Geography Markup Language (GML), 
• geoprocessing and 
• Web integration. 

The OpenLS platform provides open interfaces to LBS core services such as route determination, directory, location utility (geocoder that obtains x, y co-ordinates from address, and reverse geocoder that obtains address from x,y co-ordinates), presentation (display showing map, point of interest), and gateway (find position of mobile terminal ‘from the network’). 

OpenLS Abstract Data Types (ADTs) are the basic information constructs used by these core services. ADTs are ‘application schemas’ of well-known data types and structures for location information encoded in OGC’s XML for Location Services (XLS). These schemas encode location information, for example, route summary and route geometry, route instructions, location, area of interest, and point of interest and address. The specifications of OpenGIS are geared toward the development of interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless, and locationbased services. These specifications enable developers to make complex spatial information accessible to help deploy various services and useful applications.

In order to make spatial standards interoperable with communication standards, such as, to integrate LBS into Internet, Web and wireless, OGC coordinates its activities with several organizations including OMA, IETF, W3C, OASIS, ISO, Parlay. Parlay is a consortium that develops open APIs based on their Open Systems Architecture (OSA) for mobile networks that provides functionality for authentication, authorization, and access to network services. APIs for OSA/Parlay enable service implementations within existing fixed and mobile telecommunications networks. This architecture/framework complements the GeoMobility Server, described here.

The GeoMobility server
The GeoMobility server provides the basic functionalities on which location-based applications are built (the OpenLS Core Services). It provides subscribers with various location-based application services and content. By using open interfaces to access network location information, this server allows applications to access a set of core services known as the OpenLS Core Services. To summarize, the GeoMobility server provides:

• The Core Services and their OpenLS interfaces along with the OpenLS Information Model, consisting of Abstract Data Types (ADTs).
• A set of applications build upon the Core Services and accessing them through OpenLS interfaces.
• Content such as map data, points of interest, routes, and so on used by the Core Services; this content can also be hosted on other servers and accessed through the Internet.
• Various supporting functions for personalization, context management, billing, and logging.

Best practices for LBS privacy

There is however lack of established user privacy standards. In 2010 CTIA Wireless Association published “CTIA’s Best Practices and Guidelines for Location Based Services” but the document is not legally valid. The guidelines emphasize user notice and consent since it is the LBS user whose privacy is at risk if location information is misused or disclosed without authorization. Per the guidelines, LBS providers must inform mobile users on how their location data will be used, disclosed and protected for each user to decide whether or not to use the LBS service or authorize disclosure. More information on the CTIA's "Best Practices and Guidelines for Location-Based Services" is available at http://www.ctia.org/business_resources/wic/index.cfm/AID/11300.

source: Subhankar Dhar and Upkar Varshney "Challenges and Business Models for Mobile Location-based Services and Advertising" Communications of the acm, May 2011, vol. 54, no. 5, CTIA’s Best Practices and Guidelines for Location Based Services, OGC

User Motivations and Behavioural Patterns on Foursquare

Why people broadcast their location?

Foursquare and other Location Sharing Services (or Location Based Social Networks) have been used for marketing purposes from the begging of their existence. In order to investigate what value does those networks bring to marketers we need to understand what is the user’s motivation for location sharing. Well of course each of us knows why we broadcast our location to friends, but until its proved by science these are only personal impressions.

In the paper published in 2011 "I'm the mayor of my house: examining why people use Foursquare" Janne Lindqvist have investigated the topic. The quantitative survey with 219 participants revealed several motivators for participants that can have some relevance for marketers:

• Gaming, fun, badges – the most perceived value seems to be linked with the element of gaming, collecting points and badges contributes to the perceived fun of Foursquare.
• Social connection – interacting with friends seems to have a big value for users. The most important aspects are: knowing where the friends are and keeping in touch with them and checking-in to the same places and the same time. The social aspect of Foursquare is very important here, majority of participants claim that Foursquare is fun because their friends are using it.
• Place discovery – majority of users have discovered a new places or where motivated to go to new places because of Foursquare. Most participants where pleased with tips about venues that they have seen on the service. The discounts offered by venues were not that important for users – less than half of them addressed it as a motivation.

Where? When? How often?

The other significant issue is linked with the question: where when and how often do people check-in?  The same research displays on a figure below  frequency of check-ins for various places.

From the bar charts one can observe that restaurants and bars are the most popular places to check-in at even several times a week, which seems to prove the social and place discovery usage model of Foursquare. From the other hand participants hardly ever check-in at schools and homes, which might be caused by privacy concerns. There is a small group of users that are willing to share their home location and a bigger one that share work location even more than once a day. The survey showed that there are people who are interested in gaining as many points, badges, and mayorships as possible, and check-in everywhere.

The other reseach  by Cheng in 2011 investigated patterns from more than 22 million check-ins globally. Generated from the data tag cloud of the most popular venues that users check-in shows

that the most popular places are restaurants, coffee shops, stores, airports, and other venues reflecting daily activity (e.g. fitness, pubs, church). The result seems to prove several points from the previous paper presented. Cheng researched as well the temporal distribution of check-ins in the World:

 

This pattern provides a glimpse into the global daily activity intensity. One can observe there three major peaks: one around 9am, one around 12pm, and one around 6pm. 

Conclusions

The end purpose of social media is not to simply push out a message through yet another channel, but to deliver a message in a way that is both compelling and shareable, and that the recipients will want to share with their network. Marketers using Location Sharing Services must look at ways in which they can provide an interactive experience in-store that leverage the technology in the pocket of their visitors—an experience that will convert them from browsers to buyers and from one-time customers to loyal fans who act as advocates in both the real and virtual worlds. You will not do it with a simple discounts, the study proved the gaming and social aspect is more important. Discounts - yes, but make them more valueble and let customers be more engaged to get them. They will come back for more. Social-gamification - this seems to be the key to success. 

Location Based Services - emergency applications

One of the fundamental application of LBS is utilizing the ability to locate an individual calling to emergency response agency (911 in US, 112 in EU) who is either unaware of his/her exact location or is not able to reveal it because of an emergency situation. Based on this spatial information emergency response agency (e.g. ambulance, police, firefighters) can provide help in a quick and efficient way.

In 1996 the US Congress passed the law issued by Federal Communication Commission requiring all US mobile operators to locate emergency caller dialing number 911. In the first phase of the project required all 911 calls to be routed to the nearest public safety answering point (PSAP) and provide the PSAP with the telephone number of the originator of a wireless call and the location of the cell site or base station transmitting the call. In the second phase (2001) the wireless carriers where obliged to increase the accuracy of the geographic position of the caller up to 50-300m. 

European Union Commission has passed a similar regulation –“ Commission Recommendation of 25 July 2003 on the processing of caller location information in electronic communication networks for the purpose of location-enhanced emergency call services” based on Directive 2002/22/EC . This article asks EU states to develop national regulations for mobile operators enforcing the automatic positioning of emergency calls: “Member states shall ensure that undertakings which operator public telephone networks make a caller location information available to authorities handling emergencies, to the extent technically feasible, for all calls to the single European emergency call number 112’’. The difference between approaches in US and Europe is that EU in fact did not enforce mobile operators to increase the accuracy of caller’s location. Especially in
the USA initiative brought vast development of LBS technologies and infrastructure among mobile operators that allowed them to offer other services.

Data from Location Based Services can be used as well for disaster management. One of great examples is the Ushahidi platform - an open source project which allows users to crowdsource crisis information that was sent via location-enabled mobile devices, but as well published in the Internet, local media ect. and visualize it on the map to get the ‘real picture’ of the problem and manage rescue services in the most efficient way. The platform was found to be a great help during Haiti earthquake in 2010.

Another emergency application of LBS was released in the city of Portland in 2010. The city created open source platform where citizens are able to report problems with the city infrastructure via iPhone and Android devices using dedicated application - PDX Reporter.   It enables users to select the type of issue to report, take a photo, geotag it with GPS or interactive map, add comments, and send their report to the responsible bureau. Afterwards users can view issues they have submitted and check the status of the issue.

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 - 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