Once considered to be the possible ‘killer application’ for mobile operators, it is the high level of interest and advances in technology that have spurred the development of the location industry and created a multifaceted assortment of players, service concepts and business models. The more personalized a mobile service is to a subscriber, the more valuable that service becomes, both to the user and to mobile operators. By combining information on the location of a mobile phone user, services can be tailored exactly to the user’s situation. These powerful location-based services are one of the keys to the growth of Mobile Internet, in both the consumer and business markets.
Even though many mobile location-based services (LBS) have not become as successful as anticipated, some location services already show much promise in several European countries. The most successful services, in terms of revenues, are turn-by-turn navigation services, corporate fleet management and tracking solutions, in addition to location-based voice and data tariffs. In 2007, about seven years since the launch of the first services, European mobile LBS revenues amounted to roughly € 157 million. Part of the problem emerges from the multiplicity of LBS and the lack of a standard for solutions and legislative uncertainties.
Location services, as commonly discussed today, consist of a broad range of services that incorporate location information with other data. This includes services deriving the proximity details from the network, the device or even the user. There are, as yet, few commercial examples of LBS. For the most part, services are in conjunction with WAP services, but the technology and applications are yet to truly converge into compelling services before a wider acceptance can be achieved. The result is an exciting, yet confusing, picture that is difficult for mobile services providers to apply to any structured analysis or business case. In all the excitement of this evolving industry and technical advances, it is important to note that location/proximity information is only one of several elements that are necessary to make the services valuable to users. For example, details on the location of a mobile user who is trying to locate his favorite restaurant are not particularly valuable without the underlying database that can match user location to street maps with names and locations of various retail establishments. The direction the user is travelling in is also useful contextual information.
There are three basic forms of LBS that need to be considered:
• location-blind, where a user pulls wireless content from the Internet;
• location-aware, where a user has input location to receive information relevant to their surroundings; and
• LBS, which will emerge from the convergence of the Internet, wireless communications and mobile positioning technologies.
Other services, such as Advertisements, will ‘push’ location-based information to subscribers, to advise them of special offers available in nearby stores while out shopping, for instance.
Mobile advertising that can direct mobile users to a nearby coffee shop with a ‘50% discount coupon’ is not particularly valuable unless targeted to user profiles that include information on beverage preferences. Location information provided by mobile services providers will not be valuable by itself unless combined with other critical information that is typically owned by third parties. It is this need for partnership that makes the business models for LBS particularly complex and the role of the mobile services providers less clear.
LBS is surely an area of modern mobile services where considerable growth is observed. The developments in the Internet domain, wireless/mobile networking as well as the proliferation of positioning technologies expedited such evolution. The impact on nomadic users is tremendous. It is evident that such progress needs to be addressed in a methodological manner and supported, where appropriate by coordinated standardization efforts.
Posted by : Saurabh Sinha
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1 comment:
LBS(location based service) is quite a relatively new concept and I am really skeptical whether the service will really take off and become popular in India. Now it all depends upon the cretivity of operators on how they use this service as an add on for profit.
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