So, sometimes I’m wrong (not very wrong actually) and sometimes stuff I’ve been saying for ages (long before anyone else) seems to be coming true.
A couple of themes I’ve been writing about over the years is that Location Based Services, if done right, are a winner and that mobile TV is a bit of a dog - certainly in the short term. Sure, I think video clips will be big, especially User Generated, but TV on the mobile doesn’t yet have mass appeal.
And then along comes a survey from In-Stat that says pretty much the same thing.
1,000 early adopters and business people were interviewed and while 15% expressed strong interest in Mobile TV, 53% wanted their phone to help them find their way around and find local services, like restaurants.
Now the caveat here is that business people aren’t going to be Digital Natives, using Rupert Murdoch’s expression, but Digital Immigrants. So what they say they want, might be very different from a 20 year old who was practically born with a mobile in their hand and who can use one in pitch black with her hand behind her back.
Having said that, I think these Digital Natives will still prefer LBS over Mobile TV, albeit on the basis of using LBS in different ways. Services like Loopt are clear winners to this new generation, provided they can overcome the challenge of working with operators/carriers.
Obviously, for this type of navigation to work usefully, it has to be superfast, which is a technical challenge. But I’m still holding out that LBS will be up there with voice, messaging, audio/video player, video/camera and web browsing in the suite of most frequently used tools in the mobile phone of tomorrow.
Anyone think I’ve missed anything in that list?
Why do you need to work with the carriers?
We’re already able to transmit location based information from a mobile phone to any web server on the planet. (We can use area code, zip code or real time GPS data). The carriers don’t need to be included in the loop.
Check out the picture at this link: http://www.5o9inc.com/Business.html it clearly shows real time “location” information with regard to buying a bottle of water and getting a mobile coupon.
Doing local restaurants and local search is a no brainer with this capability.
With regard to “it has to be superfast” - how about “real time”.
Cheers.
Peter
Hi Russell,
I know that you have/are consulting for Loopt and that is great but I’d suggest rounding out the article listed a small cadre of cool emerging companies also making a go at this area. It would make you post seem less biased to include others, I think (worht mentioning a caveat). But, I agree LBS has a lot of potential and some pitfalls as well if not done right. Will Mobile TV be the fad of 2006 like podcasting was last year?
My 0.0000002 cents
Reno
Pointr.com
still stealth mode
For most parts I agree with you, but I think it’s importnat not to look at LBS as a killer app “that will change everything”.
Alot of the LBS services that comes out, and has been over the last years have faded fast. TomTom (the dutch GPS company) has a Buddies function that works over GPRS, There were some positions based mobile games a few years back, but I think the interesting parts of LBS is when the postioning is commoditized and any service can utilize it, then there can be services for natives, immigrants and even those that are trying to emmigrate:-)
When it comes to mobile TV I am sure that it will have to be part of a change from Scheduled viewing to a mix of ondemand broadcasting and ofcourse live events, olympics or similar.
My 0,02 öre
jakob
Video calling and messaging (different from video content creation), is picking up in line with sensible video tariffs for 3G approaching parity with voice tariffs. We are already seeing Digital Natives acting in surprising ways over video:
- Video treating (home-made erotic videos as e-gifts to lovers)
- Cab driver protection (video the cab driver and send to mates for extra security)
- Video gloating (showing off: tricks, purchases, girlfriends)
Peter - there are possible “work arounds” as far as carriers are concerned, normally requiring the consumer to manually input some data or push their location in some way to the service provider. But in the context of pace by pace navigation, buddy finders or even find-my-nearest, I haven’t seen a comparible solution. They may be out there and I don’t profess to be the fount of all knowledge.
Reno - in fairness, I can’t possible mention everyone in this space every time I mention LBS. Yes, I did some consulting for Loopt and when I mentioned them originally I made this clear and I linked back to that post here. Besides which I don’t know every player in the space and can’t really be expected to.
But I am happy to feature anyone else doing anything interesting in mobile and LBS if they let me know about what they’re up to, I think they’re interesting and/or if I come across them elsewhere.
Russell
Hi,
LBS is great. Just thought I’d get that is first.
However most of the services to date have been a “locate me, and tell where an XYZ is” eg find an ATM.
I believe teh failure of these is because most people spend most of their time in an area they know. Therefore it is relatively rare to find oneself in a “strange” location, and then want to discover a local XYZ. Thus the association between your phone and searching for real world things is not made by teh consumer, and when they are stuck, they turn to more traditional methods.
So i believe that these services will not take off until other LBS services create teh association of phone and location.
Steve
Steve - yep. Couldn’t agree more. Most early experiments were obviously deployed without much real thought about how people use them and find-my-nearest ATM, petrol station etc typified this approach.
I do think that a nearest restaurant/bar guide is a little different - in major cities, it could be as useful for residents and visitors alike. But I think it needs a big injection of User Generated Content to really take off and be useful.
But I think the real key for take up will be when we can use the phone as a virtual mouse to connect the real world with the digital.
Russell
Hi MobHappy,
Of all the mobile/wireless developers I’ve met this past year, location is the thing that gets them most excited (large & small companies). Most of the demos I’ve seen at large comanies are NDA, but have a look at Jaiku (http://www.jaiku.com/)
I ran into these guys at the Symbian show this week. They can approximate the location of a handset through knowldge of the GSM network timing to a kilometer or so radius, without the carrier being involved (or knowing anything about it).
On top of this they layer context and presence to create, well, a social-networking app.
The problem I see is getting any kind of momentum (i.e. enough of your buddies to use it) behind this kind of thing.
-gabe
While I’m at it, and we’re on the subject, one of my favourite mobile services is a tie-up between Orange and London Transport.
The way it works is, you open the browser and it finds your nearest public transport (it’s fairly and reliably accurate), you select your station/stop, and continue with the journey planner app.
It’s good because:
1/ You don’t have to type your location into your phone. This alone makes it useful and means I use it even when I know where I am.
2/ Even though I live in London and mostly know where I am, sometimes I don’t. It’s a big place.
3/ It shows how good it can be when a network works togeher with an application specialist. (Obvioulsy, Orange does not have intimate knowledge of London Transport System and timetables)
Not sure if other networks in the UK have this, but I’m always surprised more people don’t rave about it — maybe I should get a life
Whenever I show it to people, they’re always like “Uh, i never knew you could do that.”
I completely agree with you, Russell. I recently had a chance to see a MobiTV demo and while it was novel to watch TV on a phone, I don’t think I would ever use it. BUT — I am constantly finding myself in situations where I NEED LBS. There’s a lot of cool companies out there innovating this space, along with Loopt. A bunch of them will be featured at the next Under the Radar: Mobility conference on 11/16. More info here: http://undertheradarblog.com/under-the-radar-mobility-conference/
in the US the founder and former CEO of mobliss has started a new company called Useful Networks that is working as a cross-carrier LBS info aggregator - http://www.useful-networks.com/
more about some of my favorite LBS apps (and why I think it’s too early in the game to hate on mobile TV) at twofones:
http://twofones.typepad.com/twofones/2006/10/it_aint_where_y.html
- g
Actually there is a company called Cityneo http://www.cityneo.com in Europe that created an application called MovingBlog based on geolocalized usergenerated content available on mobile devices as well as on the web.
It’s really interesting. I had the opportunity to meet with them at the last GSM world congress in Barcelona. Pretty cool.
Julian
Mojeo - LBS on any phone…
I saw Mojeo presented at the Mobile 2.0 Event in San Francisco Monday as part of a Launchpad presentation spotlighting new services. I wasn’t too impressed with the presentation which was brief and lacking in details, but I did jot down “mojeo.mobi,…