Starting the year with a smile:-)

Since mid 2010 I’ve been writing a book about Location Based Services (LBS) applied to the marketing practice. While many people exclusively associate Location Based Marketing (LBM) with check-ins applications, the uses of location in marketing goes far beyond that.
This weekend I began the chapter about check-ins. I wanted to open it exploring the motivation behind checking-in. Why are people sharing their location? Exploring this topic I had a little Fun with F words and this is a fine compilation of my notes.

The F* word

Marketers like to frame concepts in terms of numbers & letters, like the 3 R’s, the 4 P’s, the 4 C’s, or the 5 W’s of marketing.
Looking into check-in applications the first and most important F word is “FIND”, and the rest fit under this vast category. But leaving this at only one “F” is a facile job. I had to F.I.O. four or five main categories.

The Five F’s of Check-ins

Fun

First and foremost many of the check-in based social networks are games. People participate for the fun of it. They fiddle around and compete to achieve virtual status, badges, stickers, pins and many other prizes.

Friends

Finding friends is another significant category. You check in to find-out the “fauna & flora” in your neighborhood. The idea is to facilitate fortuitous face to face encounters with folks and fellows, and filter your frenemies. Furthermore, this includes other activities like flirting and going footloose fooling around (only if you fit-in).

Fancying

Are you a fan of a specific place? If so, you would like to feature this place in your comments, fostering and forming good opinions about it. Others will check-in to learn about favorite sites, and they might visit your preferred food place for your comments, doesn’t matter if it is frozen yogurt, french fries, falafel, fried fish, frappuccinos, or frosted flakes.

Freebies

After the fun fades and you are tired of getting another flamboyant badge, and you find that looking for friends in a new city is a futile task, the FREEBIES are the reason that will keep you checking-in. You will check-in fishing for offers, fetching coupons and free stuff.

Following

Following is my fifth category. And in this one I include following yourself (looking at your traveling history) and following others.

Final thoughts

Much needs to be fixed in the check-in apps. Some of the problems are the (lack of) fairness of the system, and the faux Check-ins. While those are not a felony, fraudulent check-ins detriment the real value of the community.

IMPORTANT: While I made this exercise for the FUN of it, the categories are for real (I’ll elaborate them in my book). This framework will allow marketers the use of check-in apps functionality efficiently. I hope it wasn’t a futile effort and that I pass your critique with flying colors. My fringe benefit is in your comments. I’ll appreciate your F-eedback.

The 7 F’s of Check-in

Thanks for your comments on Twitter and emails.
Here are the last two F’ words that fits under “Why are people checking in”: 6- Fame 7- Flirt
And with that we have the 7 F’s of Checking in.
Updated graph

My best wishes of peace and prosperity.

“2010 will be the year of LBS”. Well it’s about the end of November and we can start changing the song to “2011 will be the year of LBS”. And as if Location wasn’t enough we added Indoor LBS to the mix. Everybody speaks about Indoor Navigation, and most of them refer to a completely different concept

The business opportunities

Most of the Interactive Maps apps are primarily themed for Malls.

From the marketing perspective and looking at the “mall potential users” we see that only 17% of the population has a smartphone, and close to 31% of mobile internet services users are female. That means only 5.27% of the population are females using mobile internet services. From the total of female smartphone users only around 21.5% use some kind of location services. That leaves us with target market of 1.1% of the mobile phone owners. Mall demographics show that females outnumber males 2:1, and in most cases they shop in places that are familiar to them. That means that about 1 out of 100 customers entering a mall is a POTENTIAL user, and if you consider that these apps are only available for certain phones, the target market is even smaller. Can you imagine a customer that visits the same mall every week, turns on the wi-fi to navigate to a store he/she knows?

From a mall application I would expect more. I would like to be able to enter a specific product, and have the app connected to the stores’ actual inventories. Look for prices, show me the places where I can have it now, and even offer alternatives. It’s not about finding a store; it is about helping the users to find their way to the products they want.

At this point of time, Indoor Navigation shouldn’t be the focus. Positioning interactive maps as such is a much better strategy, as the users receive what they have been told, and a small commercial ecosystem can be built around that concept.

Interactive maps can better serve other indoor venues. A clear example is trade shows, where there is a larger concentration of Smartphone users, there is a need to locate places in a venue that is totally unfamiliar, and the opportunities for advertising are larger.

The Boy Who Cried “Navigation”

I was recently putting in order my library and I found a very old book with Aesop fables. It was one of my favorites as a kid. Here is an adapted version of one of them:

“…There once was a developer boy who sat on his Mac, sipping a latte and watching the village customers pass by. To grab their attention he took a great breath and sang out, “Indoor Navigation! Indoor Navigation! We have Indoor Navigation!” The villagers came running and installed the app. But when they arrived to the mall, they found there were interactive maps only. Later, other developer girl sang out again, “Indoor Navigation! Indoor Navigation! We have Indoor Navigation!” To her delight, she watched the villagers installing the app again. When the villagers, familiarized with their TomToms and Garmins, saw they have turn by turn directions but not the same customer experience sternly said, “Save your happy song for when there is really navigation, like in our cars!” Later, a third one released an app that worked exactly like the GPS in our cars. Excited, he leaped to his feet and sang out as loudly as he could, “Indoor Navigation! Indoor Navigation! We have Indoor Navigation!” But the villagers thought they will not receive what they expect, and so they didn’t install the app at all. The End.”

Let me be clear at this point. I have seen amazing apps coming to the market during the last year, with huge investment, lot of work behind, and some of them with a real value proposition. My point is that we need to create a common language that will allows us approach the market without confusing the users and the customers, and in a way “killing the golden goose” (as Aesop would say)

Can we agree on the definitions?

What do I expect to receive from a basic Indoor Navigation app? 1) An app that automatically identifies where I am and shows me an updated layout 2) After determining my destination the device will find the best route 3) While moving towards my destination the map will show my movements without my intervention 4) If I take the wrong route, the device will notify me and create a new path 5) The device will notify me when I arrived to destination.

If your car GPS device would require from you to input where are you, move the map manually, figure out if you are in the right path, guess if you arrive to destination, etc. we would agree that by today’s standards, we will not call that navigation. So why call that user experience “navigation” indoors?

The best way to describe what we have today is “Interactive Maps”. Interactive maps include all the features you can find in apps today. Search and discover, turn by turn directions, locate products and services, identify facilities, ATMs, and other POIs. Look for an exhibitor in a trade show. Find your gate in the airport, and the eateries in your way there. Trigger promotions to consumers when they enter the vicinity of a store, and many more. In a stretch you can call it “Indoor Location Services”, just don’t call it “Navigation”.

Crossing the chasm to real indoor navigation

Are we ready today to provide indoor navigation? Technically maybe. Practically?… I doubt it. For real indoor navigation, as defined above, you must have certain hardware infrastructure. In order to approach a mass market, there will be a need to create a hardware infrastructure for each site, which will most probably be based on Bluetooth.
You need to identify the right venues, analyze if users will have a compelling reason and benefit from the use of indoor navigation, and create a business model that will maximize the profits.
The third component is accuracy. If I’m looking for an exhibitor in a tradeshow, I need at least 10 foot accuracy.
The most viable way to make this happen is having companies like Google, Motorola, Cisco, Nokia, etc. take the lead on developing and providing the required infrastructure. Companies like AT&T, Verizon, etc. may take the installation and maintenance of the infrastructure. There resides the real market opportunity. When this happens, the interactive map applications will get an additional layer of relevancy. Most probably at that point of time the companies that develop, install, and maintain that infrastructure will claim the larger share of the benefits

Last Aesop reference

If Location Based Marketing is in its infancy, Indoor Navigation is in the gestation stage. We don’t know what it will look like, or who the leading players will be. We know not what the standards will be or who will determine them. What I know is that today we have high-quality interactive maps and we can enjoy them in many places. Those apps, while presented and sold correctly, can provide a very good income stream.
At the end of the day, to make Indoor Navigation possible and profitable, we need to create an environment with a compelling reason for users to adopt this technology i.e. users that receive a real benefit; it should 1. Be targeted to a mass market; 2. Provide a product that is comparable to our standards for outdoor navigation, and without a doubt 3. Be based on some kind of external infrastructure. Those that claim you don’t need any of these may fall in the category of “sour grapes” (and that was my last Aesop reference).

Location-enabled social networks are not new. As a matter of fact, there are more than 100 companies providing some type of social networking with location features. Some of them have been integrated with Facebook for a long time. So why are these changes important for marketers and business developers?

What

During the last six months, I’ve had the opportunity to speak at many forums and conferences about Location-Based Services in Mobile Marketing. I try to keep my presentations updated to new developments in the industry, but sometimes it’s a challenge. On the use of location in social networks and business intelligence, I have to change my presentation every 10 days.
Why? During the first weeks of March, USA Today published an article on how geo-location applications would be the hottest tech trend at South by Southwest. ReadWriteWeb featured a blog about Google patenting location-based advertising. During the last weeks we read about FourSquare passing the 2 million users, and Facebook acquired Hot Potato mobile check-in startup and released Facebook Places aiming to bring Location Based Services to the masses. Twitter officially became a location-enabled application last November.

“…Mobile advertising is only one part of your marketing mix. Mobile marketing is broader and includes not only delivering ads or coupons to the customer, but also other activities like collecting information that will feed your strategic marketing decisions…”

Why

If we look at the raw numbers, there are around 1.3 billion phone lines in the world. The number of TV sets and personal computers is higher, around 1.5 billion of each. On the other hand, the number of mobile phones has surpassed 4.6 billion globally. Look around you during the day — on a bus, at a restaurant, walking on the street, or sitting in your office — and try to answer the question: If I want to reach that person right now, what should I use? A telemarketer, a TV ad, direct mail, or a notice to her phone?

“…WHERE is an inherent question in your mobile marketing strategy, and location-based information is a key component of your solution…”

Where, That is the question

It’s important to know the difference between mobile marketing and mobile advertising. Mobile advertising is only one part of your marketing mix. Mobile marketing is broader and includes not only delivering ads or coupons to the customer, but also other activities like collecting information that will feed your strategic marketing decisions. As a marketer, you may need to answer these questions:

• Where do my customers live, and where do they buy?
• Where are my competitors?
• Where are my marketing efforts invested?
• Where are my opportunities? i.e. Where should I put my next Point of Sale?
• Where are my sales representatives?
• To what advertising medium do my customers respond? Billboards? Mobile coupons? Where were they when exposed to my campaign?
• Are products sold better in particular zones? Where and why?

WHERE is an inherent question in your mobile marketing strategy, and location-based information is a key component of your solution.

The hidden power of location information

Location plays a role in every critical area of your business — marketing, distribution, logistics, sales, finance, customer care, and more.
Twitter added location capabilities to their platform late last year, meaning that if your customers or target market opt-in, every single message will come geo-coded with the location from where that message was delivered.
Imagine you are in the shoes of one of the most famous customer service managers in the U.S., Comcast’s Frank Eliason, and now you can map the location of every single tweet. Very soon, you will be able to elucidate where the most troubled areas of your network are located, where you should invest in improving your infrastructure or where should you focus in an image improvement campaign. Now extrapolate that idea to a politician or rock band. Wouldn’t you want to know where to focus your political campaign according to “mood maps”? Wouldn’t you want to know where your fans are and organize your concerts to maximize your revenues?

Facebook added location to their platform, so what?

Not long ago, my login page on Facebook changed. A mobile phone is displayed and a title asks me “Heading out? Stay connected – Visit facebook.com on your mobile phone.” Over 100 million users access Facebook through their mobile devices. Facebook now start using location information, but it seems they are collecting it for a long time. In the privacy policies section, you see this: “When you access Facebook from a … mobile phone … we may collect information from that device about your … location…”– no opt-in, no opt-out.
Let’s take a look at the power of ad targeting inside Facebook. Today you are allowed to create a marketing campaign and create segmentation by location (where you live), demographics (age, sex, sex interest, type of relationship, languages), likes and interests, education, work, etc. Imagine if you could add the ACTUAL location of your target market.
If this option is available, you could create a marketing campaign targeted not only by a certain demographic but also to customers that at the time of ad delivery are close to your business, or close to a competitor, or located in a certain place at a certain time. During the football season you could offer discount tickets to fans who are close to the stadium minutes before the game. You could send a beer coupon to New Orleans Saints’ fan page members who are located at the stadium every time the team scores a touchdown. And after the game, you could send to more than 500,000 of those fan page members a coupon with an address and map to their closest TGI Friday’s.

“…We live a mobile lifestyle in which immediate contact is important. Place and time matter. Location makes the occasion, and in the occasion lays the opportunity. Are you ready to seize it?…”

Where occasion meets location

The availability of your customer location allows you to create powerful tools. Companies like Foursquare and Gowalla are redefining what it means to be a “regular/patron;” others like SenseNetworks provide you with tools to dissect location information and give you human predictive analysis. Companies like Waze offer users free navigation and redefine the concept of “driving” customers to your business, and there are those pioneering location-based mobile marketing, advertising and content management like 1020 Placecast.
We live a mobile lifestyle in which immediate contact is important. Place and time matter. Location makes the occasion, and in the occasion lays the opportunity. Are you ready to seize it?

Is Indoor navigation a viable business? What are the main business factors that will determine the broad adoption and success of indoor navigation solutions?

A few months ago I wrote an introduction about the opportunities in indoor navigation. Please read the comments as every single one adds an additional piece to the puzzle. My question today focuses more on the business perspective and less on the technical solutions. Who can make it happen? What can we learn from the evolution of Location Based Services in general and Personal Navigation in particular?

Inferences from the LBS industry

If you look at the automobile industry, you will find a defined ecosystem with clear roles and niches. There are auto makers, spare parts manufacturers, dealers, authorized shops, independent mechanics, parts distributors, etc. There are also customers that know exactly what they want. You, the customer, can actually enter any dealer and leave driving.

While comparing the LBS industry with the Auto industry, my impression is that in the LBS industry you have many Auto Parts manufactures, but no Auto Makers. If you want to provide a service (drive anything), you need to buy parts and preassembled kits to build your own car and hope that every piece is compatible with the other. Moreover, when you need a “LBS mechanic”, they usually know how to fix specific parts for specific models. Does a LBS ecosystem actually exist?

“…While comparing the LBS industry with the Auto industry, my impression is that in the LBS industry you have many Auto Parts manufactures, but no Auto Makers…”

James Moore introduced the concept of business ecosystem in 1993. In his book “The Death of Competition” (1997-p26) he defines ecosystem as:

“…An economic community supported by a foundation of interacting organizations and individuals—the organisms of the business world. This economic community produces goods and services of value to customers, who are themselves members of the ecosystem. The member organizations also include suppliers, lead producers, competitors, and other stakeholders. Over time, they co-evolve their capabilities and roles, and tend to align themselves with the directions set by one or more central companies. Those companies holding leadership roles may change over time, but the function of ecosystem leader is valued by the community because it enables members to move toward shared visions to align their investments and to find mutually supportive roles…”

Can we include the LBS industry into this definition? Are there any organizations that foster the “LBS world inner laws of nature”? Are there any central companies that the community look as leaders and is aligned to? Are those companies leading us to a shared vision? Is there any shared vision?

“…Are there any [LBS] central companies that the community look as leaders and is aligned to? … Is there any shared vision?…”

In his 1993 paper “Predators and Prey – A new Ecology of Competition” published at the Harvard Business Review, Moore identifies 4 distinct stages for an ecosystem: birth, expansion, leadership, and self-renewal or death. During the birth of an ecosystem the companies try to figure out what customers want, the value proposition, and how to deliver it. After so many years the new LBS industry is in the dawn of the birth stage, trying to figure out the differences between users and customers, how to create cooperation channels and dreaming about certain standards that can unify the community to the second stage (expansion) where suppliers and partners work together to achieve a mass market profitable for all.

Indoor Navigation – The Big Bang

The indoor navigation is – literally – an uncharted territory. There are a few companies that started to produce small components, filling localized and specific needs.

In order to materialize as a profitable business a leader must emerge. This leader will set the roots of the indoor navigation ecosystem, provide the platform technological direction and create the conditions where developers, providers, consultants, contractors, customers and others can gain some benefit.

Going back to Moore, there are two conditions for an ecosystem to expand “(1) a business concept that a large number of customers will value; and (2) the potential to scale up the concept to reach this broad market”. I’m convinced that condition number 1 already exists. The challenge is to identify the organization with the capability and willingness to scale up the concept to a mass market.

There are many companies in the market capable to implement core technologies, foster innovation, attract partners to cooperate and support the right birth and growth of the indoor navigation ecosystem. The only question remains, as usual, where is the money? What are the business models that will support the ecosystem? This is the topic for a third article; and if you consider your company as a viable candidate to lead this new business opportunity I’ll be glad to exchange some ideas with you.

@schapsis Indoor Navigation: The new Gold rush? Part-2 – Ecosystem and opportunities. www.bdnooz.com http://ht.ly/1Q6EP

Comparing D LBS & D Auto industry, my impression is: D LBS industry have many AutoParts manufactures, but no Auto Makers http://ht.ly/1Q6EP

Are there any LBS companies that the community look as leaders and is aligned to? Is there any shared vision? http://ht.ly/1Q6EP

Is Indoor navigation a viable business? What R D main biz factrs that will determine D adoption of indoor navigation? http://ht.ly/1Q6EP

Over 120 persons RSVP to the VBC event in Miami

I’ll post my comments here after the event.

If you had the opportunity to participate, I’ll appreciate your feedback. What do you see in this map now?

Thank you!

Claudio Schapsis

In one of my first posts, I noted that one of the main components of the LBS Value Chain is the ability to acquire and transport a user’s location and give access to that data to many service providers. Getting this information is, in many cases, expensive and presents obstacles to online service providers who would like to develop services based on mobile a user’s location. I was looking for the missing link between the mobile and the web world.

While there are many different approaches (and we might present some of those in the future), Xtify, a company based in New York City, caught my attention. They are creating a cloud of location information where authorized service providers can make available services using the location of their subscribers.

As usual, I was more interested in the business perspective of their operation. The following is a synopsis of my conversation with Josh Rochlin, CEO of Xtify.

I want to thank again Josh for his time and kindness to open up his business for us to learn. I believe many will have much to comment and say.
Follow up.

What is the difference between Xtify and other companies providing similar services?
We are currently the only company that is deriving location persistently from mobile devices and then building business rules around it. We source the location directly from the mobile device, rather than through the wireless carriers. This allows us to make location information available on a persistent and affordable basis.

Normally, you will need to pay per dip if you source from the carriers themselves – currently in the US, this is only possible from Sprint – with other carriers working on their own solutions). This approach can only work when you require location data occasionally. If you want to take advantage of persistent user location, a per-dip model becomes unaffordable.

“We are …deriving location persistently from mobile devices and then building business rules around it…We source the location directly from the mobile device…This allows us to make location information available on a persistent and affordable basis”

Xtify allows the mobile user to (1) persistently publish their location to a “cloud” and then (2) provide permission for a third-party to access their data in order to provide location-related information and services.
An example on how Xtify can be implemented is at http://www.seemywhere.com – which requests the latest location of the user.

So I can see your position all day long without your permission?
No! SeeMyWhere is designed to expose my location only to those with for whom I choose to share it.
Another example can be seen in at http://www.myeverymove.com. This application keeps a diary of your locations throughout the day. Because Xtify sources persistent location, I can choose to have the diary automatically update, without any user input.
These applications are only examples of services leveraging our push and pull API’s information from the “cloud”. A typical implementation using Xtify might not provide this level of visibility into my whereabouts. The location information would simply be used by an algorithm to inform a service, message, or advertisement.
To try www.seemywhere.com or www.myeverymove.com you can point your smartphone browser to either of these sites and download the applications.

Can you give me an example of a commercial application
Take, for example, companies that provide text-based mobile content (i.e. www.4info.com, www.chacha.com/, and http://pingmobile.com/). The way they work is that the user sends some these services a question, and the service replies with an answer, usually through SMS. I was trying out one of these services recently and I received strange answers to my question “Hotels in Manhattan.” The “IN” was interpreted as Indiana (a state in the USA) and the results came for hotels in Manhattan in Indiana. Then I asked for “Hotels NYC” and the results where close – I received hotels in Upper East Side of Manhattan. But at that specific moment, I was in the SoHo district of Manhattan, several miles away.
What Xtify can provide today is the capability to geo-tag an SMS that comes to the system and do this in such a way that the system will know where I am; replying with answers (and advertising) that are geographically-relevant and will therefore garner higher advertising rates.

“What Xtify can provide today is the capability to geo-tag an SMS that comes to the system and do this in such a way that the system will know where I am; replying with answers (and advertising) that are geographically-relevant and will therefore garner higher advertising rates.”

Can you elaborate on the implementation?
As I mentioned before, Xtify sources location from the mobile device. We use the best available source, GPS, Cell Tower and Wi-Fi information to determine your position and push that information to our secure servers. When a user sends a question to an SMS service, they could route that message through the Xtify database, then correlate a location-relevant advertisement to be included in the response. Xtify can communicate that “this phone is currently in SoHo, NY” and that service provider can associate an advertisement that was paid for by a business in SoHO, New York. Now the answer and the advertising have complete geo-awareness.
The market has been waiting for a solution that adds location context to their service – a solution that Xtify now provides.

So how do you make money?
We charge based on the value we bring to a customer and on the basis of the volume of transactions or processes. Let me illustrate this with another example. On many occasions, Madison Square Garden (MSG), an arena in New York City, could have unused tickets before a concert or a game. We could provide a service to MSG to set up promotions based on time before the concert and distance from the MSG arena. We can set radii around MSG (i.e. 5 blocks, 15 blocks, 1 mile). We then set time intervals (i.e. 3 hours, 2 hours, 1 hour before the event). Xtify can then push a promotional message to the people who are proximate to the venue and who have asked for a discount ticket promotion from MSG.

“Xtify can … push a promotional message to the people who are proximate to the venue and who have asked for a discount ticket promotion … This model applies to any business that has perishable inventory such as empty restaurant tables”

This model applies to any business that has perishable inventory such as empty restaurant tables.
Of particular importance to our business model is the way that Xtify is shipped on every Peek device [www.getpeek.com]. This allows developers to create services similar to the one we’ve just discussed, as well as services similar to www.peekmaps.com.

So, is it fair to say that your business model is only a B2B business model?
Absolutely, we are not a customer facing company. We provide persistent user location information for use by marketers, business developers, and web application providers. We have products and API sets that offer the ability to take an action (i.e. send a text message) based on the location of customers and users. We also look forward to working with carriers and handset manufacturers in the same way we have integrated with Peek.

How is the location relayed from the phones to the cloud?
We install a small application that pushes location information into our secure servers (“the cloud”) using TCP/IP protocol via your mobile data connection. We have intelligent algorithms that adjust the reporting frequency as necessary. That means, if you are stationary, there is no need to continually resend the same information. This minimizes the data transmitted.
Note that Xtify works today only on smartphones. Xtify requires a mobile device that can run the Xtify process in the background. We currently function on Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Android Devices. Once the iPhone allows background processing, we will run there as well.

“…we need to encourage service providers to rethink the way they collect and access location and realize that a much affordable solution exists…”

Who do you think are your competitors today?
The biggest competitors for us are time and intertia. Meaning, we need to encourage service providers to rethink the way they collect and access location and realize that a much affordable solution exists. Additionally, other companies will soon realize the benefits to our approach and attempt to enter the market.

A question about privacy. How are people reacting to the fact that 100% of their location information is going to be recorded and available somewhere in a cloud?
We believe the user must have complete control of his privacy and location information. Our location servers do not collect any personally identifiable data, and therefore we don’t know who is in the cloud. There is no profile, phone number, or personal email that can identify the person. All we can see is a bunch of secure user IDs running around the world. The user opts to have a trusted relationship with a service or advertiser or any other business. The user then shares their information with that service provider based on the conditions of that trusted relationship.

But the system is prone to misuse, isn’t it? What can block me from installing the application on that person’s phone without their knowledge and track them all the time?
We specifically chose to include a shortcut / link / bookmark on the mobile device so that the owner of the mobile device will know that it is there and can turn location notification off if desired. However, there is nothing that we can do about human nature, any technology can be misused.

“…We believe the user must have complete control of his privacy and location information. Our location servers do not collect any personally identifiable data, and therefore we don’t know who is in the cloud…”

Is your application for domestic applications only?
There is nothing about our business that is only domestic. Our system can work any place a mobile device works around the world. We welcome companies outside the United States to leverage Xtify for their local or global business needs.

So there is a reason for you to come to Miami to speak with the Latin American operators at LBS LATAM 2009
Absolutely! I am looking forward to participating at the event.

Personal Notes after the meeting:
It was hard for me to process during the conversation the concept of “know ALL my personal where” available in a cloud. Then I understand Josh’s point on inertia. I remember then Newton’s First Law of Motion that, when translated to business terms, can be defined as, “The tendency of the market moving in one direction, to remain in that motion direction, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it”

I can see now many forces that can influence this process, but this is a subject for other conversation (and for your comments).

After the long weekend pass and I had the opportunity to summarize many of the emails and twitts received during the last weeks, I was surprised to still find new Location Based Social Networks coming to the market… not. This week I added to my List of Location Based Social Networks:  Match2blue, My Adventures, Snikkr , Mizoon, Nulaz , Toai , and Glympse.

I also found a few social networks closing or going through difficult times and struggling to survive. Then I remembered last Friday I was saddened to find one of my regular lunch places out of business. I just entered the Subway next door and had a sandwich. Today I found a “coming soon” sign at the same place.

Is there any parallel? Certainly there are LBSN for many tastes. There are gourmet types of Social Networks, others that appeal the masses, some that serve particular type of people, some are for dating, some are for business, some you need certain hardware to get in, and others that are by invitation only.

The fact is that in both cases the owners invest a considerable amount of money to get in, they dream to have fun and be unique, and in some cases they understand very little about the business model and end loosing all their savings.

That’s why I tried to contact some of the companies going through difficult times, to understand their process, check if I can help, and see if we can all learn something from their experience. I couldn’t find those willing to share their struggles yet. On the other hand, I had the opportunity to talk with two of the most successful Location Based Social Networks in the market and they shared their vision and experience. This will open a series of notes, that I hope will give some perspective for existing and planned Location Awareness Networks to be.

Not long ago I had the impression this market will soon consolidate to a handful of companies. Now I have my doubts. There is place for a diversity of LBS based networks, and they are as varied as people tastes for food. Now I’m going back to the list of LBSN and I still see much of the same flavor.

What do you have in your menu, how is your business different from the others, how do you make customers to come back, and how do you build a name in a difficult industry. (Am I talking about food or technology now?). Bottom line, there is still a huge space for good marketing work to be done. Power to the marketing department!!!

If you are around here I will invite you to a good restaurant, and we can talk about business, just give me a call or drop an email I’ll be glad to help.

On a final note I wanted to have a restaurant; in fact my friends say I cook very well. I talked with a chef friend about my plan, the environment, marketing, ideas, and he said to me “You don’t understand, the money is not on the tables, the money is in the kitchen.” Yup, I didn’t understand much about their business model…

Sundays is usually posting day, today I’ll take a different approach.

I believe one of the most important results in a post is the readers’ comments. They enrich and bring new perspectives to the initial approach. Skipping over those comments and the exchange of ideas is like ordering a banana split and eating only the ice cream.

I would like to refer you to the readers’ contributions on my post on business models for navigation devices combined with social networking. There, new applications were exposed, a few questions remained unanswered (wireless guys, your input please), and there is an amazing exchange of observations on what is Presence Marketing – how to use it combined with Location Based Social Networks, the extension of RFID applications, and Privacy concerns (my next topic).

My remarks on CES and notes on the Privacy Factor on new business models can wait a day or two.

I encourage you to read the comments to the end and most important, leave yours.

I have nothing more to say but THANK YOU!

Press HERE for the post.

From conversations I had with friends and colleagues, I believe this will be the first of a series of “last parts” regarding business models for Mobile Location Based Services.

I’ll assume through this post 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 there.

In my first post I defined the “Location Based Service concept” as the company’s effort to transform geographical positioning information into valuable and relevant data for a customer, to make a profit. The question here is: who is the customer that is willing to pay for that data?

Tim O’Reilly defines in “What is WEB 2.0” Data is the next Intel Inside and he presents a key question: Who owns the data? And I would add, What Data?

In the following Business Model the LBS service provider owns the data. I reviewed many Location Based Social Networking sites and in most cases “some kind” of lack of privacy is the base of their business model. Differently from carrier fee based pushed services (top – down), this model is based on bottom-up. The LBS provider enables a platform for people to interact for free. In this scenario the handset is usually subsidized by the carrier, interested in generating traffic. The free service is now growing in viral mode and at this point the customers should be called by their real function: “data collectors”.

The idea is to collect your customer location, and delete identifiable information (name, photo, address) but keeping the demographic (sex, age, likes, dislikes). This customer’s “Location Information” can be indeterminably retained by the LBS service provider. The data can be aggregated, and provided to interested third parties willing to pay for certain content, segmentation, information about people movement habits, and many others. Are you starting to get the picture?

Let’s figure some scenario

Location Based Social Network Raw Data

Segmentation - Location Based Social Network

The <– left figure shows the data collected in NYC in one month time. The right –> figure shows different types of segmentation of the same data. Now with the valuable data on hand, you just need to find your real customers, those ready to pay for the information. For example, a person planning to open a few coffee shops would find valuable where and when its target demographics meet and hung out. Retailers would like to know where their potential customers meet, what their usual routes are, where they stop, for how long they stop, etc.

The concept of Location Based Advertising gets now a new dimension. Most companies tried to implement on cellular networks the same advertising models used in desktop computers to discover that customers are much more resistant to receive any kind of adds in their cellular phone. Additionally, the cost of sending coupons or ads to every potential customer walking by your store makes this model almost prohibitive.

Do you remember the movie The Minority Report? Tom Cruise walked through some screens and the advertising shows up completely customized to his person. The mistake with today’s Location Based Advertising is to assume that the media used to collect your location information should be the same as the media to deliver the message back. Your cell phone is good to know where you are, not necessarily to receive ads. The second mistake is to assume the message needs to be completely personalized. The ads displayed (billboards, info kiosks, signs, etc.), can target certain population according of the demographics visiting the area.

Going back to our business model and to provide an example from real life, we can mention Google maps for mobile devices. While this is not a LBSN application it still fits the model mentioned above. Google lets customer use their Mobile Google Maps for free. Every time a customer with a GPS enabled phone (the data collectors) used the application, Google maps collected information about closest cellular towers. Today, and thanks to the help of million of free data collectors, Google can provide Location Services in their system, using the cellular tower information collected, also to customer without GPS enabled devices. LBS Developers (the customer) can use this features now, for a fee. Brilliant!

As I expected when I start writing this post, I still have many topics to talk about this issue, i.e. can companies that offer LBSN survive only on that feature or will they be swallowed by the big ones (Facebook, MySpace). Is privacy overrated? Will the marketing/advertising agencies have to add more technical/engineering people to their staff?

Be expecting more than one post a week! And please link / share / comment . THANKS!