HOW TO CREATE THE KILLER
LOCATION AWARE SOCIAL
NETWORKING APPLICATION
Mr. Yogev Triki
VP Business Development, AtlasCT Ltd.

What will we talk about?

Topics
1. Introduction
2. Features set
3. Common issues
a) Reaching critical mass
b) Building trust
c) Bringing it to life
d) Dealing with fragmentation
e) Obtaining location
4. Conclusions
5. Q&A

Our background
More…

Our background
Location based users-generated content Location based social network

Our background
Family safety 3D Off-board navigation

1. Introduction

What is a social networking service?
 A software/service for building online social
networks for communities of people who share
interests and/or activities
 The most famous ones:

Why bother?
 “40 percent of mobile web traffic heads to social networks”
Source: Opera mobile browser.
 Mobile social networking revenues could reach $52 billion by
2012.” Source: Informa UK Ltd. ‘Mobile Social Networking:
Communities and Content on the Move’ Report.
 “GPS-enabled handsets that will account for an estimated 78%
market share by 2012 end.” Source: Research and Markets, ‘World
GPS Market Forecast to 2012’.
 Location is a key boost to social networks
 More and more handsets & operators support location
 More efficient advertising opportunities
 Navigation is the mostly step 2 of the mobile user
 Viral marketing

2. Features set

What are the features?

Around me
 Where am I?
 Where are my friends?
 What is nearby?
 Nearby friends  Basic
 Nearby locations  Useful
 Nearby content  Fun
 Photos
 Videos
 Comments

Communication
 Contacting
 A known friend
 Unknown person
 A business (Search result)
 Means
 Phone call
 Video call (3G)
 SMS
 Instant messaging (IM)
 Voice over IP (VoIP)
 Issues
 Disclosing details
 Spoofing details
 Costs
 Tracking of communication

Content sharing
 Geo-tagging
 Multimedia
 Photos
 Videos
 Text
 Locations
 POI’s
 Tourism
 Other(Wi-Fi Hot-spots,
celebrities etc.)

Content sharing
 Incentives for generating content by users
 Personal use of the content
 Expectation for getting something in return
 Getting to know better the system, curiosity
 Feeling of making change, Ego,
 The 90:9:1 thumb rule
 90% Passive
 9% Casual contributors
 1% Massive contributors - They create most of the
content in the website

3. Common issues
a) Reaching critical mass

Critical mass
 What is a critical mass?
 A minimum number of
users that by actively
exchanging information
and sharing knowledge
they keep an online
community up and
running over time.
 How to reach critical
mass in short time?

Fast growth
 Use the existing contact
list
 Add friends from other
networks
 Facebook, LinkedIn, Orkut,
etc.
 Invite friends from mail
accounts
 Gmail, Yahoo, POP3 etc.
 Suggest friends
 Two 2nd degree links
 Make use of groups 
Fastest!

3. Common issues
b) Building trust

Building trust
 Brand
 Don’t spam – let the
user decide what and
when
 Be careful with default
values (Examples:
default location
availability, photos
publicity etc.)
 Protect against identity
theft
 Digital signature and
code signing

Building trust
 Legal protection
 Minimum age for
signing-up
 Separate to age groups
 Parents/moderator
permission for adding a
friend/publish a photo
 Privacy management
 Location availability –
Opt ins
 Location obfuscation
 Time/place

3. Common issues
C) Bringing it to life

Bringing it to life
 How to make the
application ‘feel alive’?
 Let it work from the first
moment
 Friends availability
 Content availability
 “We were waiting just for
you”
 News feeds
 New content
 More friends
 “While you were gone…”

3. Common issues
d) Dealing with fragmentation

Handset families
 Choose one handset
family to begin with:
 Display dimensions
 API’s availability
 Market share
 Average user profile

Generalization
 Make your code “porting ready”
 Images dimensions
 API’s abstraction
 Location
 Communications
 UI’s
 Keypad
 Full keyboard
 Touch screen
 Consider using 3rd party services for porting

3. Common issues
e) Obtaining location

Obtaining location
 Locationing methods
 External (Bluetooth) GPS receiver
 Internal GPS receiver
 Network based
 Cell ID
 IP address
 Manual
 Other (Wi-Fi, others)

Obtaining location
 Major differences
 Accuracy
 Good enough for navigation?
 Good enough for local
search?
 Good enough for local
advertising?
 Availability
 Through 3rd party provider
 Built-in, API
 Self implemented
 Power consumption
 What’s best for navigation
isn't essentially the best for
social networking

4. Conclusions

Product
 Remember who your users are
 Usage patterns
 Implications on porting scope
 Age
 Implications on complexity and
legal issues
 Buying ability
 Implications on business model
 Remember what your
application is for
 Mostly for fun
 Implications on GUI
 Saving time <> Killing time
 Implications on features set

Development
 Don’t “invent the wheel”
 Use existing API’s and
tools available
 Aggregate users from
existing networks
 Don’t shoot too far
 Give the basic features
first and introduce more
advanced features later
 Begin with a small group
of supported devices
 Focus on what you’re
good at

5. Q&A

Thank you!
Yogev Triki
VP Business Development
Atlas Cartographic Technologies Ltd. (AtlasCT)
yogevt@atlasct.com
www.atlasct.com