Comments on: Location Based Services Value Chain – Part 2.5 – The Case for Location Based Social Networking

By: How location will enable milking more money from Social Networks - Conexion23

How location will enable milking more money from Social Networks - Conexion23 — Mon, 03 May 2010 21:21:32 +0000

[...] and that it should be used to provide some compelling value to the customer. When I build a business model around an intangible technological concept such as a LBSN, my first question is: Who is your USER [...]

By: How location will enable milking + money from Social Networks | BDNooZ

How location will enable milking + money from Social Networks | BDNooZ — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:12:38 +0000

By: Location Based Services & Social Networking Business Model - Old meet Web2.0 | Location Based Services - Business Only

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 02:10:51 +0000

[...] you can recall the definition of social networks mentioned in my previous article about location based services value chain, SNs are: “…online communities of people who share [...]

By: Business Models for Location Based Social Networking | Location Based Services - Business Only

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 15:15:54 +0000

[...] that you have read the preceding articles (LBS Marketing Concept / Value Chain 1 / Value Chain 2 / Location Based Social Networks 2.5) as many of the keys for further business models discussions reside [...]

By: Jeroen van Bemmel

Jeroen van Bemmel — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:56:54 +0000

Value (as in value chain) isn’t necessarily (only) about money. You could for example have a case where the user gets his/her location sent to all of his buddies, in exchange for money, some loss of privacy, perhaps the right to give the location to 3rd parties, etc.
The value for the user then lies in knowing that his/her buddies know where he/she is (or at some meta-level, perhaps the user considers it ‘cool’ to be monitored). The value for the mobile operator is then the money (direct), but also e.g. the reduced chance at churn, maybe improved volumes of interaction on the network (indirect)

Likewise, for a mobile operator one could analyse the balance between cost and compensation. And although SMS is expensive for end users and LBS providers, for a mobile operator the marginal cost of sending an SMS (either for determining location or sending it to a recipient) is zero.

By: mobile

mobile — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:32:38 +0000

The idea was to compare the virtual and the mobile worlds in terms of end user spending money. I agree with you, most carriers are offering bundles, but bottom line you need to pay for that. That’s not the case when I use my Microsoft Messenger (that was the context )
Moreover, If you are a LBS provider and you buy services from M2M operators, those SMS services become very expensive.

Thank you for your comment. You made a valid point.

By: Jeroen van Bemmel

Jeroen van Bemmel — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:20:56 +0000

Where you say “On the virtual world all messaging services are free” I guess you mean that messaging services on the fixed network use a different business model (often based on advertising / brand value). Likewise, “you pay for every single SMS” isn’t entirely accurate anymore these days – more and more carriers are offering bundles, sometimes with “all you can send” SMS for a fixed fee.

One criterion the value of a mobile carrier is judged by, is its number of subscribers, relative to the total market in which it operates.
Likewise, the value of a social network can be judged by its number of (active) subscribers. However, the comparison falls somewhat short: in principle the addressable market of a given social network is the world, possibly limited by the language(s) that are supported. People can be a member of many different social networks, and few networks are exactly the same, so “relative marketshare” is hard to determine. And of course, subscribers churn away much more easily from a social network, simply by not using it anymore (there is no contractual binding)

By: Shaili Jain

Shaili Jain — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:32:23 +0000

Insightful & crisp outline of the LBS ecosystem.

The complexity (product & business model) around LBS apps & services is the biggest remaining challenge as this part of the value-chain is still very new and undefined. The social LBS apps that have worked to some extent are the family finder / buddy beacon types. However, they simply extend the existing social networks. The other killer apps emerging are tied to lifestyle social sites such as fitness, adventure travel etc where location adds an essential & crucial information into the social interaction. The biggest value would be to understand & leverage the semantics associated with ‘WHERE’ and incorporate that into existing web apps & services (including geotagging, behavioral networks, Internet bot services, recommendation engines, hyper local content services etc.)

We, at Abaqus, provide a LBS web app (www.mygeodiary.com) to allow users to record & organize their geodiary and then use this location data across various services on the web (blogs, photo services, social sites etc.)

thx,
Shaili