Comments on: The Second Coming Of Location Based Services #stats

By: Marcel Crudele

Marcel Crudele — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 14:37:32 +0000

I think you’re right. The logic seems to be that a lot of the Internet is fueled by advertising dollars and smart phones connect to the Internet, therefore, smart phones should be used for advertising. That’s the obvious path that has been drilled into our heads for 15 years. People need to take a step back, look at all of the tools on the table, and remember what imagination and creativity are.

That being said, I love my ScoutMob Deals!

By: Ruud Hein

Ruud Hein — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 14:25:32 +0000

In reply to Marcel Crudele.

Good points Marcel.

It seems we’re stuck at “well … uh…. let’s offer location based deals”; we’re approaching this new opportunity technology with old technology ideas.

Maybe we should be thinking instead: what would be cool? useful? fun? I love NikePlus, for example. That’s a smart use of location information. But how about people tracking (for Alzheimer patients)? Car location (by figuring out speed & distance the app can know when you get out of the car … and thus where your car is). A virtual speedlane checkout: offer deals/info and get people to order/pay via their device too. All the shop has to do is prepare and hand over.

By: Marcel Crudele

Marcel Crudele — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 13:49:28 +0000

Great article! LBS has lots of potential, but I agree that people have a tendency to get carried away with the buzz. Remember in the 90’s when everyone had to have a website because … well, just because. As soon as it went live they expected a huge increase in business.

The same is true for social media today with companies “doing” social media by having a Facebook page – that no one maintains. There are no easy answers and new technology doesn’t absolve people from evaluating opportunities through the lens of business fundamentals (nice references, but I might be biased 😉 ).

I like LBS, but taking another stroll down memory lane leads us to companies like Dodgeball from 2000 which disappeared under Google’s ownership. However, Dodgeball wasn’t able to get traction like the founders’ successor FourSquare – I actually know people that use FourSquare.

I think there’s a lot of potential in LBS and people now seem ready (a subset of people), but it’s early in the game of user adoption and it’s going to be a tumultuous slug-fest. Good times!

By: Ruud Hein

Ruud Hein — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 12:56:00 +0000

In reply to roy morejon.

I see what you mean and that’s a good point to make, Roy. But that idea itself has been around before so I don’t know if it would be the *killer* feature. Also, I guess online coupons such as those would appeal to a small segment of the population the way offline coupons aren’t mainstream killer features of newspapers and magazines?

By: roy morejon

roy morejon — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 12:43:30 +0000

Ruud,

You mention that “the market has yet to provide a killer feature making it really useful for the mass consumer market” – I believe we are getting closer to this with incentive-based offers by companies like Shopkick and WeReward. Offering cold hard cash to check-in is incentive enough for me.
.-= roy morejon recently posted: Top 10 Social Networking Websites – A Year Later =-.