Posted by Tattletech on Jan 26, 2011 in
Location Based Services,
Mobile,
Start ups 
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This was supposed to happen with Blue-tooth — see /interact with other Bluetoothers around you, connect if you wanted to and boom! Instant local social. But Blue-tooth was unreliable and gosh-darnit, was just a little too weird and slightly too complicated for the common man to work out. So we waited.
Then all these smartphones came on the scene, we got LBS – now just Location Services (LS) and now this. A new Twitter follower came on the scene today and introduced me to Hob-Knob. They claim to be the only “Locally Based Social Networking Application. Chat, share pictures or files and get deals all with people and businesses located within the same wifi as you”.
Careful, read that correctly…. located in the SAME wifi as you are. That means that if I am say, at terminal 2D at CdG where I usually find myself waiting for a flight to somewhere, everyone using that wifi there and I can connect, share, chat and of course the self-proclaimed savior to LS – get deals from nearby retailers, which in that case, would be Relay and the airport snack shack.
I kinda dig the concept behind Hob-Knob cause it throws narrow and not wide, it takes the basic premise that you are there now, in the moment around those people in that location and why not benefit from it. Although if you are close enough to share photos with someone you know in the same wifi area as you are in, why not just get up and go over and show them one-on-one, unless of course you are in high-school at the back of the class and your BFF is in front of the clase and you must send her a photo of Eric, the new kid that just transferred in from Helsinki. In that case, it would be useful. You can follow Hob-Knob (Knob? really? did they miss the boat on branding or what?) on Twitter @hobknobbers
– JH
Tags: Bluetooth, Helsinki, Hob Knob, local based services, Social network service, Social Networking, Wi-Fi
We are lucky enough to be able to peek into two tech worlds. One, is a well established, revenue producing, tactile-based yet well understood world of telecommunications, i.e. how you watch TV (set top boxes, TVs, electronic program guides, Video on Demand, PVR, etc.). The other one is the topsy-turvy exciting world of web 2.0 technology that you can’t really get a grip on but you know its there and your friend Trixie uses it, so it must be ok. These are the people that bring you Facebook, the cloud, Twitter, social networks and the like.
The telco world lives pretty much in a fact-based (although somewhat altered) world of actual subscribers, content rights and a general understanding of how to move their industry forward. Now I said “general”. They don’t succumb to hype and when they get a feature that they think will make the vertical trade press wake up and listen, they go for it with gusto – currently the red hot chili in this world is “3D”, multi-screen delivery and social TV (also the cloud). Suffice it to say, they never really cave into hype.
However, in the other world – they live in a bubble that thrives off of hype and works on the premise of “if a few are doing it, we all must be doing it”. This brings me to location based social networks.
Recently there was a great article via CNN about why location apps haven’t gone mainstream yet. When CNN writes the story, it takes on a different perspective because by the time the “hype” of the start-up technology or craze (location based social networks) comes their way, they actually decide to look into it and see what in reality is going on. The article goes on to say that only 7% of all Americans actually are AWARE of location based social networks. This would have to be 7% of all Americans (around 21 million people) But if you tune into any start up technology news source, it would read as if the whole planet is using it and its growing by leaps and bounds. So many issues affect normal users that don’t affect early adopters. Most early adopters (those with smart phones like iPhones, etc. rather than feature phones) tend to care less about privacy than those outside of that market.
VCs still are funding location based start ups and they are putting more pressure on them to monetize and gain traction with users, but how many location based social networks can NON-early adopters handle? And how many of those care more about privacy than the early adopters. If early adopters don’t care about privacy nor the fact that their sign up and usage is just paving the way for targeted advertising, what happens when it hits mainstream and they do care? How will the model be adjusted then? It could be just an issue of usage = complacency, which is normally how technology gets assimilated into our lives, we just get used to it and then we can’t part with it. Or rather, its like a drug, we crave it even though we are forfeiting some of our privacy rights. After all, no one is making you sign up for these services.
Here is our take: Location as it relates to your life where you are in the moment will be relevant to the mainstream user (not early adopter). For example, I am shopping on this street, let’s see what else is around me. Not WHO is around me, but WHAT is around me. If I see that there is something near to me, I want to get there easily, and if there is a money saving voucher or coupon, I am more incented to go there.
According to UK-based Juniper Research, mobile coupons are redeemed at a 5% to 20% rate, compared with about 1% for print coupons. They recently forecast that 1 out of every 10 mobile subscribers in developed regions around the world will use mobile coupons by 2014, generating nearly $6 billion in redemption value. The fact of the matter is that consumers like coupons/vouchers. In the fourth quarter of 2008, coupon redemption was up 7.5% in the US alone. And, according to Hitwise, internet searches for discount vouchers in the UK grew by 47.5% in 2009.
We aren’t the experts, but this sort of feels a bit like maybe how the Gold Rush felt — lots of people rushing in to get their claim, but most of the claims just pinch out. Where LB social networks go from here is up to the user, and they are a fickle lot. – JLH
Tags: Advertising, CNN, Facebook, Social network, Telecommunication, Television, Twitter
The ride-sharing, car-sharing, do better with transportation, save our planet game just heated up with the news of Zip Car’s acquisition of the car sharing service, Streetcar. And, with the international exposure (CNET article) of flinc out of DEMO Spring 2010 – it emphasized a number of other ride-sharing start ups already in the process of modifying drivers and passengers behavior. There are some established players here in Europe like France’s Comuto which is already cash-flow positive to Karzoo with its pan-European focus. Other newer start ups still in stealth mode (although not so stealth since we know about them) are Geogoer and Boston’s RelayRides bring a unique solution to the concept of ride-share and car-share.
flinc currently is in a pre-pilot stage but has a project underway to enlist the world in determining where they should roll out – if you want to participate check out the Where’s flinc tab on their website. But if you want to try out modern car-pooling and you are in France, check out Comuto. Having used the service here in France, I can honestly say that it works and is a great way to get around. They have a really nice iPhone app too. They have a map that shows you where you can go and the list of rides (with prices) is unending. We have a friend that goes from Paris to Bordeaux each week via Comuto. Urban rides or suburban rides - it is about getting from point A to point B – all you need is a lift, or to give someone a ride. These apps and services are hoping to help you save on fuel costs and change the way we think about commuting and transportation. Not to sound too sappy, but it also comes with a feeling of doing the right thing and there is nothing wrong about that. - JLH
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Tags: carpooling, Carsharing, Comuto, DEMO, flinc, Geogoer, Green, Karzoo, RelayRides, Ride-share, Zip car, Zipcar
We had the chance to talk with a several VCs and tech experts in London about the future of location and its place in the world. Lots of discussion, agreement and disagreement, but the one thing everyone agreed on was location and indoor use. In other words, a mall, a school building — essentially INSIDE a structure.
Now, instead of a long rant about how unrealistic this probably is – both from a usability point of view and in light of more mainstream adoption of augmented reality apps by businesses and consumers — we give you this article on indoor positioning that sums it up:
…..In the meantime, your wife will simply ask some friendly person for directions, and you’ll be stranded there earnestly button-pushing like an asocial geek.
Tags: Augmented reality, Nokia
Way back at the beginning of 2009 at CES in Las Vegas, we had the great pleasure of meeting Claudio Schapsis. Claudio was deep into Location Based Services (LBS) and if and how they could make money. He was tracking all the 80+ start ups at that time that had entered the loosely defined space. We liked that about him. He was trying to get some perspective in place around a market segment that had sprung up quickly but had no definable borders. His blog is bdnooz and there he tackles the issues surrounding LBS, its future and it’s ability to generate revenue. You can also follow Claudio on Twitter @lbs_pro.
Tattletech: Location, location, location and yet no one can seem to get it quite right these days, what do you think is missing right now from all the location based services (LBS) out there?
Claudio Schapsis: We are witnessing a paradigm shift. Wireless carriers were used to provide services with 100% retained revenue. Then, products like the iPhone come to the market and revenues start to be shared; voice is declining and text and data based services are flourishing. Location based services complicate the equation even more, as in order to provide a LBS you need to divide the pie between more hungry diners. A simple Location Based Service require maps, development interfaces to access the maps, an app developer, a LB Service provider, location aggregators, AND the wireless carrier to transport the information. Suddenly the value chain changed and we are on the quest for the right business models that can serve everybody (see some of my articles about Value Chain here <http://bdnooz.com/2008/11/28/location-based-services-value-chain-part-2/> ).
The immediate consequences result on some of them crippling non PDA phones, taking away simple features like the capability to synchronize your contacts with your computer or in the case of location based services “hijacking” the GPS functionality to work with their own “pay more” applications. Can you think about having to pay an extra to use the digital camera of your phone and be allowed to do so only with the carrier own service? What’s the difference?
The difference is, as usual, money. ABI Research estimates that this year worldwide Location Services will grow 156% to 2.6 billion dollars and by the end of 2014 will surpass the 14 billions. The drive to control those features will only slow down the industry’s growing process. Instead of fighting for a larger slice we should be looking on how to make the pie bigger. And that’s possible, as the LBS market (for personal applications) is in his infancy.The right business models are missing for the industry in general, and also for those new Location Based application developers. Many companies try to migrate web applications to the mobile world without thinking through about the new value chain. Suddenly they discover that providing a free service is not free, that they need to develop in four or more different operating systems, that the threshold for privacy in mobile phones is different than your desktop PC.
I could answer your question with just three words – Right Business Models.
TT: You are speaking at a lot of LBS events and specifically on Latin America, what do you think the primary differences are in this market and the rest of the world?
CS: The penetration of mobiles phones in Latin America is around 80% and in some countries in the territory over 100%. The market is mostly dominated by two major regional players America Movil (Telmex) and Telefonica Movistar. They share more than 65% of the Latin American market and together with TIM they have around 75% market share. That means those three companies have more than 10% market share of the whole word mobile market. Their size and coverage allows them to take regional decisions, providing them a substantial leverage when negotiating with vendors and partners. On the other hand each country presents different user profiles in terms of usage and consuming behavior.
The usage of data is still low, but growing. And besides the traditional fleet management and AVL applications, we start seeing Location Based Services made in CALA i.e. Location Based Social Networks, Friend Finders, Bus routes notifications, and others. The difference is that in this market most of these services are provided in partnership with the same mobile providers.
But you start seeing the first movements in the market. This is the first year that Frecuencia Events organized LBS LATAM <http://www.lbslatam2009.frecuenciaevents.com/home/contenidos.php?id=34&identificaArticulo=26&idiomaRequerido=2> together with their traditional Mobile Content LATAM and Mobile Enterprise LATAM conferences in Miami. As chairman of the event I can say I was surprised by the response in terms of attendance from the region and vendors interested in this market. You can see companies like Tele Atlas, OpenWave, AnyData, Position Logic, Xtify, and many others coming to meet their prospect Latin American partners.
TT: Lat49, a Vancouver-based provider of a geo-contextual advertising network, raised $1.5 million in Series A funding which is a lot for an LBS company these days, what do you think it will take for VCs to fund LBS companies today?
CS: Investments in the LBS arena are not much different from other markets. I might sound repetitive, but the first thing I would like to see is a solid business model. You cannot start a company that your exit strategy is “we predict that xxx will buy us once we get to our 500,001 user”. I would check the company capability/record of delivering (execution), their uniqueness in the market, relevancy, and timing.
Nevertheless, when looking at LBS companies, you need to understand the specific LBS value chain, the nuances in each specific market, and the implementation feasibility. This is particularly true when the service is based on data collection/exchange with a mobile device. I can have the best LBS idea, but if the carriers block me from getting the information then where is the value? (Porter’s Supplier Power). I had the opportunity to work with many investors in evaluating different types of proposals. I personally look for core enabling technology that can be seamlessly implemented across different REAL WORLD applications. After reading many different proposals it becomes easier to see the pitfalls, multiply the opportunities, and find alternative cash-flow possibilities.
TT: On your blog write about the monetization of LBS when do you think that the LBS companies today will actually begin or be able to monetize? Will it be in their consumer app or will they turn them to B2B proposition?
CS: There are numerous companies in the LBS that are making money. Many of those provide infrastructure services like data aggregation and enabling technology, other are just emerging in the mobile marketing arena.
I personally prefer B2B propositions. For me Location Based Services are a company effort to transform geographical positioning information into valuable and relevant data for a customer, to make a profit which I find easier to implement that into a B2B environment.
TT: A lot of VCs today say a map is just a feature, nothing to build a whole application around, what do you think about that?
CS: Location is not just a feature. It changes everything. I can understand VCs that sees many propositions around web applications + location. LBS go beyond that. The real LBS applications are not something + location but the real effort to covert Location into Money. How? Send me an email with the specifics and let’s keep talking.
– JLH
Tags: Claudio Schapsis, Location-based service
Archemides Screw takes water from one place and moves it to another. The rotating motion with Archemides Screw represents change. Sometimes the benefit of change, the transfer of water from one place to another to nourish the newly planted field, isn’t noticiable right way. It may take time to move the water once the tip enters the body of water, but eventually the screw keeps turning and that water is moved to the top and change takes place.
This is what we see happening as the body of water that makes up the current Web begins to migrate to the future Web. In a recent article in Wired, they talk about the future of the Web and it’s location, location, location with an emphasis on mobile and tagging. Web-research firm Compete says one in three mobile-phone owners uses location-based tools, and the number of apps has exploded from 500 to 2,500 since last October.
We also see niche areas around location evolving in the areas of heathcare, education and online learning. We see both a broad and narrow casting application of location. We think that niche can survive but too many broad applications can not once Archemides Screw moves all the water to the new field.
Companies like Loopt, Foursquare, Graffito, Socialight mentioned in the article, have their eye on the future Web built on location and tagging. They have bet on the fact that mobile phones have changed how we connect to the world around us. The article puts the ultimate question out there – how is the return of geography going to change our lives? – JLH
Tags: Add new tag, Foursquare, Geo location, Geo tagging, Graffiti, Location Based Services, Loopt, mobile social networking, Sociallight
This week in a ReadWriteWeb article on the changes of MySpace, the writer Marshall Kirkpatrick said “Facebook can’t rule the world for ever. No one can.” We could not agree more – we believe social networking should represent a free exchange of personal data, contacts, photos, videos and any content the user want to share. Instead of a walled garden, we see a community garden that allows users interact, share, exchange, collaborate, and discuss whatever they want to. This raises a question around social networking in general – is it “platform agnostic” or not? Absent any substantial differences in quality, does it really matter whether you park your online persona at Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr or any of the dozens (hundreds?) of other sites?
Obviously, we don’t know exactly what the future looks like – if any of our readers do, please e-mail us! But we do think that the future of social networking is not going to be about the providers/platforms per se, but about the larger community and how providers facilitate user interaction. Open standards or open social may be at the bedrock of this future networking, going hand in hand with the augmented reality demonstrated by LBS. Just a quick glance in the direction of Egypt in the past year or two, and more recently Iran, shows exactly what we are talking about: its back to the old saying that its the message (real time interaction) that counts, not the media (Facebook, Twitter, et al). – JLH
Tags: Facebook, Marshall Kirkpatrick, MySpace, Social network
We just stumbled on JuiceCaster while doing some research on a story on location based geo tagging (we think this is the space to watch) and now are distracted. Why? Well first the name is just plain cool. Second, their value proposition is simple and does what we should be doing with content from our mobile, geo tagging without having to think to add a geo tag. It’s automatic.
Fierce Wireless reports that JuiceCaster provides one-touch, real-time sharing of pictures and videos directly from a camera phone to many social-networking and blogging sites. JuiceCaster is about keeping people constantly connected to their online communities/social networks. The beautiful thing is that because all pictures and videos are geotagged, users can look for content based on specific location criteria. Isn’t this is what having a mobile is all about – we are on the go, we take a photo and it should be tagged from the spot where were took the photo. It should easily flow to our social networks and better yet, it should pop up on map that not only shows me where my friends are but where that content was taken or where other geo content resides. I want one big snapshot of my content and my social networks. Better yet, give me a real life screenshot of my social network and content. Seeing this already with the visual social network platform IRLConnect where you can now see geo tagged live mobile video broadcasts (via Bambuser), mobile video and photos (via MobyPicture) and all your social networks on a map. Yup, that’s what I want, a screenshot of my life. - JLH
Tags: Bambuser, Geo tagging, IRL Connect, JuiceCaster, Mobile content, MobyPicture, Online Communities, Social network
Lot’s of talk out there about location and how to reach users with advertising. Proximity based, location based and now zonal markting takes center stage. As the location based services market continues to evolve day by day, we see constant shifts as both mobile operators, mobile applications and web based location based services struggle to find the heady mix that captures what is at stake: money.
Zonal marketing is different. In this recent article we read about Vodfone’s new zonal marketing campaign launching in Czech Republic and Germany, oddly early adopters for this type of advertising. Instead of traditional location-based services which essentially identifies the current location of the user (s) to process location-dependent information, zonal marketing, according to the article states that “people on your friends list are automatically logged into a zone as soon as they enter it. A zone-based service doesn’t first have to locate your friends for you because in theory it already knows where they all are.”
The article also goes on to say that the technical differences between normal and zonal LBS may be subtle and highly technical. And the big kicker is this — zone-based technology promises to make location-based services and advertising slicker. Does slicker mean more targeted? In a recent Read Write Web article, users have indicated that they are willing to accept ads if they are targeted to their very specific interests and current location. So there is hope, but this would mean that the whole system has to change – that the mobile/advertising/location ecosystem has to get to know their users and where they are, what they are doing when they get there and what is around them. It’s a whole new world out thre and the user will decide what they want in to enter their world, not the advertiser. -- JLH
Tags: Location-based service, Zonal Marketing
All I have to say is cool – geo stuff is just getting down right sexy. This news from Yahoo at Where 2.0 today about adding yet more geo tools to its line up. Why? Cause geo anything is the new frontier. By making this API Placemaker, Yahoo wants to open up the deep geo web – moving from a web of pages to a web of objects.
Developers can feed Placemaker any kind of structured and unstructured data, including feeds and web pages, and the app will analyze the text and extract location data from it. This enables tagging of content with location data and creates hyper-local products based on this data. This opens the door to maturing geo targeted advertising which makes everyone happy.
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