Mobile technology winner: LBS (location based services)

I'm a big fan of mobile devices and technology. Outside of pure interest it's also my career as a tech guy at an advertising/interactive agency. Simply put, I'm an enthusiast in my personal and professional life. One of the questions that I get most often is this: "which (mobile) thing is going to stick?" If I were a bettting person, I'd say location based services are here to stay. In fact, this technology is exploding. 

LBS defined (Wikipedia): A location-based service (LBS) is an information and entertainment service, accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the geographical position of the mobile device. 

I started giving this some thought over the past weekend. My family and I were driving to Lake Cumberland for some much needed respite. As I was driving, I was noticing during our drive to see who was using a GPS device in other vehicles. Overall, through about 100 cars and counting, I was about 35%. That's not hard science, but directional enough for my purposes and in case you're wondering, yup, I'm a dork. So overall, I will say that GPS and location aware devices have began creating the connection between location and service for consumers over the past number of years. My TomTom is filled with tons of useful information aside from maps, but it's in a passive way. In other words, it's providing much information simply based on location. I think this is important as just a few years ago, people may have believed even that was too big brother'ish. In other words, I believe the influx of smart phones and GPS only hasten our acceptance as consumers being OK with our devices knowing where we are. That was perhaps the most important hurdle to cross. 

After the initial penetration or hurdle of users being aware that you're tracking has occurred, the challenge is value back to the consumer--there isn't a shortage on our location based needs right now. There are tons of these apps growing everyday, ranging from G-Park (locating your parked car) to Virtual Graffiti via Graffitio, all immediately available from the App Store. Simply said, we've broken the seal seal on location based technologies. There's nowhere to go but up in my mind and if I'm going to place my bets people are going to adopt this technology by leaps and bounds because off direct value they provide in our lives. You can often replace many of the things your GPS did with a phone, though I believe dedicated devices serve a need much more efficiently. 

My dream, please give me a map of your store. Any store. Any mall. Any grocery store. Then allow me to Google what I'm looking for in the store. In fact, let me know which aisles each of my list of stuff is in and I will be your patron for life. I was looking for pearl sugar the other day for Belgian Waffles, no luck. Though three separate people swore to me they had it, I'd rather Google than go on the disgruntled employee hunt. 

Obviously, outside of the iPhone there are far more challenges to getting applications deployed, but developers are smart. They'll figure it out. Meanwhile while everyobe is trying to figure out how QR codes, bluecasting or location based services get rolled out, remember you heard it here, location based services will be a huge industry and has the most upside for all of us. 

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Comments

[aiello]

"let me know which aisles each of my list of stuff is in"

where GPS leaves off, GIS picks up. i pitched the idea of a "purchase map" or store route that most efficiently guided you past all of the purchases you wanted to make to a former and esteemed economic geography/GIS professor. His response was essentially this: you're a guy. females don't shop like males do. they don't mind wandering around, and marketers (and retail store designers) know this. there's no incentive to streamline the experience. retailers don't care about how guys want to shop.

at the time, i think his insight and sentiment was on the mark. that was the late 90s, though. i think consumer attitudes have undergone a sea change, but i bet the thought of geocoding shelf space and doing a google transit map for hyperefficient shopping may still be anathema to retailers. would love to hear insights from someone who knows how grocery and big-box stores view this today.