Location Based Services

LOCATION BASED
SERVICESPrepared by Keith Pinney
ALIGNED TO BBDO WORLDWIDE

Location Based Services
2
For some, it might be hard (or impossible) to
cast your mind back to 1979, even more difficult
to remember the TPS-L2, or as it later became
known in 20th century parlance; the ‘Walkman’.
From that moment in time, and well before the
concept and ubiquity of the home computer
(much less the portable PC or mobile phone), a
dizzying array of devices surged into the public
consciousness and onto and into the heads of tens
of millions of people all over the globe.
Music had moved quite literally out of the pubs,
clubs, bedrooms and living rooms and for many,
the soundtracks to their lives were created, edited,
compiled and shared around on the (now not so)
portable media formerly known as the ‘compact
cassette’. Later superseded by the Compact Disc,
Mini Discs and the rest as they say is history.
Indeed many people would
have first heard the term
‘Home Computer’ while
listening to Kraftwerk’s 1981
electronic masterpiece LP
(Long Player for those not
of that generation), ‘Computer World’, portending
a future where we would be forever tethered to
technology and data. All while wandering around
town or sitting on the subway.
(Interesting to note that much of the lyrical content
centered around the privacy of information and
how it would be shared)
One could argue that this was the first real moment
in history where people and technology were
connected to content they could control on the
move (bar the car radio), and at a price most could
end up affording.
Today, that unit has now been universally replaced
by our new best friend the portable digital music
player along with a plethora of other portable
devices. Our personal hardware now seamlessly
integrates with the internet experience, connecting
and sharing content with cameras, video, gaming,
TV and hundreds of thousands of applications.
We now indeed seem to be living Kraftwerk’s vision
of the anywhere, anytime always connected world
in the 21st century, albeit from our pockets.
The impact of this constant connection to content,
services, networks and each other, whether at
home, or wherever we may be, has placed sharp
focus on what the potential is for our beloved
handsets. And it is very much, just the beginning.
In a recent report published by Morgan Stanley,
there is an interesting insight that states we are
entering the ‘5th Cycle of computing’, that of the
mobile internet which points to the enormous
upswing in app usage and content consumption.
This is clearly reflected in leading markets with a
high adoption of smart phone technology and with
increasingly cheaper access to greater bandwidth.
In fact, when compared to regular ‘feature phone’
shipments, in North America at least, smartphone
sales look set to eclipse these regular handsets
in 2011.
Add to that the fact that 550 million of these GPS
enabled devices are forecast to be sold around the
world by 2012, and it’s not hard to see there is a
very interesting story emerging.

3
KICK OFF
Much of this initially of course can be attributed
to Apple’s introduction of the iPhone in 2007, and
the subsequent ‘Techgeist’ of other manufacturers
innovating around the model and in every case,
looking to improve it.
Rapidly, Google and its Android platform are
looking to assail this position. Most recently stating
the objective of entering the music distribution
marketplace, Apple’s hallowed ground. Watch that
space in the coming months, as this will be sure to
be a mobile play.
Interestingly enough, even in Japan where it can’t
be disputed the birth of the mobile internet truly
had it’s genesis with NTT’s DoCoMo in 1999,
Apple handsets have taken almost no time in
establishing a prominent position (although in 4th
place at the time of writing with handset sales
behind other Japanese manufacturers).
So, when you add the ability of these handsets
(and the rapidly emerging ‘tablet world’) to handle
the delivery of a vast galaxy of up to the second
content, services and personal networking, to the
increasing trend of Telcos offering flat packet rates.
You have the backbone of why location based
services are fast becoming the latest, greatest
story in this space.
It is also very much linked to the desire by
networks to grow ARPU and where there will be
sure to be a new battleground as we head toward
4G and beyond.
In essence then, a new context has emerged
for advertisers, marketers, content creators,
business owners, visitors or just simple
bystanders all linked to the real and virtual worlds,
on the go.
Some notable pundits have
called Location Based Services
the ‘Epicenter’ of mobile
innovation, so here goes.

4
Commerce Utility
Community
Key to the success and adoption of location based services, is the accuracy and relevance of Geo Data
and ultimately the accuracy of location determination (LD), for a user to a specific service.
Access to that data (and it’s currency) therefore defines how well a service can interact within that space
and deliver salient up to the second information.
We’ll look at the 3 areas in the developed markets that make up the current offering to users and marketers
and how the landscape is moving and converging quicker than with what developers can dream up.
NEO GEO
The 3 Lenses
The
Geo
Spot

5
GEO TAGGING:
Geo tagging is described as the process of adding
geographical metadata to media where it can be
accessed by a handset.
Or, a little more simply the capability for businesses,
content owners, creators and users to place
information, comment or deliver offers at a specific
place and time.
Although currently much of these actions tend to
be more like pins on a map, or made up of ‘badges
or mayors’ based on checking in, increasingly
with the advent of AR (Augmented Reality), the
capability for these ‘points’ to be rich in information
is fast approaching. Targeted not only to broad
offers, but increasingly specific and detailed
content shared peer to peer(s).
The interoperability between various platforms will
be key to seeing this become a more powerful
socially enabled action, ‘sharing’ the location
and aggregating these datapoints, and ultimately
creating a virtual ‘crumb-trail’ for others to follow,
exchange and interact with.
Many of the players in this space, are still relatively
small and leverage other services to promote and
enable this function, Twitter on the other hand
although now mainstream, became location ‘aware’
in November 2009. Recently acquiring ‘Mixer Labs’
which they will almost certainly utilise to build out
their own location driven applications.
Powerful stuff when combined, especially when
considering their current 16 million strong business
database and the ability to include media layers to
enhance this offering.
Additionally, whilst the powerhouses of Google and
Microsoft have extraordinary mapping services,
the likelihood is they may seek to further acquire
existing complimentary businesses such as Loopt
to augment their Geo offerings. A good example
of this being Google’s recent interest in Yelp,
something that could enhance both their Latitude
(formerly ‘Dodgeball’) and Place Pages products.
Geo tagging is also progressively becoming
more automated. This will increase the frequency
users add locations to their social data, inflate the
volume of locality related information and create
new opportunities for services that collect, sort and
share location based content.

6
With the potential offered up by Geo Tagging allied
to the enormous projected proliferation of smart,
GPS enable handsets, the future on a mobile social
scale for users and advertisers looks decidedly
bright.
Increasingly, with cross-platform operability,
aggregators such as Tweetdeck, Facebook and
Wikitude allow users to shuffle between multiple
services and jack these into their Geo-Coded
location. Sharing content, experiences, data and
dialogue seamlessly across these networks.
The potential for brands and marketers to then
be placed at the heart of these conversations
opens up huge opportunity to create transactional
offers or messages. Enabling brands, retailers and
businesses to take part precisely at the right time
and right place.
The fact that the massive and growing domination
of social giant Facebook (in certain countries at
least) constitutes 400M+ people with over 160M
of these accessing their profile via their handset.
It seems very clear that social networks and
their instant appeal have a big future in the LBS
ecosystem.
Personal location based updates will be as
common as changing status and could well
develop into one of the most valuable aspects
of the social networking universe. As long as
marketers understand the responsibility associated
with this information and the Telcos continue to
play nicely. After all, it is still their infrastructure that
provides the backbone of these services to the
handset.
GEO NETWORKING:

7
So, with all these billions of pieces of metadata,
what to do with it?
As with any technical application into the ‘real
world’, there has to be a layer or interface that
helps connect the relevancy of ‘data’ to the user.
We are no longer sitting behind a captive, fixed
screen environment, seated and immobile. Instead,
we draw the data to us, accessing in our own time
and space, created as a sort of personalized digital
‘vector’.
So, the impact of this is that there is a greater need
for the saliency of information and what a location
has to offer to the user. Whether it be content,
offers, rewards or simply ‘tips’.
Location-based social networking (or dubbed ‘lo
so’) currently forms the best lens to be able to take
this data and apply it into a commercial context
that resonates with users and businesses alike.
So, looking briefly at some of the current crop there
are some clear commonalities across the offering.
As this space emerges we can more than likely
expect some consolidation as these morph into
larger platforms and networks.
GEO TARGETING

8
LBS IN MOTION:
A SNAPSHOT OF 3 PLAYERS
foursquare:
Like many of the currently dominant location based
services, foursquare’s offering is based upon
interaction within a social context at a space and
point in time. Users either add existing foursquare
members to their network, or invite others to join
and participate.
They are able to view the locations and activities of
others within their network and contribute content,
read reviews or absorb tips placed at registered
venues by other foursquare users. In terms of
cross-functionality, this content has the capacity
to be pushed to other social ecosystems such as
Twitter and Facebook.
A system of rewards serves as the incentive for
using the application and by ‘checking in’, status is
attained in the form of badges being accumulated
by visitors. Actions such as frequently checking
into multiple venues in one day, or a single venue
on multiple occasions reward the most active with
‘Mayoral status’ in the form of a badge.
As of March 2010 foursquare was the largest of
all location-based services, with over 1.3M users
worldwide, and steadily growing.

9
LBS IN MOTION:
Brightkite:
Established in 2007, Brightkite allows users to
connect with existing friends and meet new
Brightkite users based on the places they visit.
Users may check in using SMS, Email, Mobile
browser or iPhone, Android and Blackberry
mobile apps.
Whilst Brightkite has avoided employing social
gaming principles like points, leaderboards
and rewards, it has embraced traditional social
pastimes such as group conversations and the
publishing of images against locations for other
users to view and comment on.

10
LBS IN MOTION:
Gowalla:
Gowalla is ostensibly based on the same principles
as foursquare however there are slight differences.
The application itself has a greater focus on design
and usability, with emphasis on the application
tonally feeling more like a game than a pure social
networking tool.
Users have a Gowalla ‘passport’, in which stamps
are awarded every time a new venue is checked
into. Items can be collected at certain venues, such
as a margarita at a Mexican restaurant or a tour
bus at a concert. Items collected replace those
previously collected.
Being slightly more egalitarian, Mayorship cannot
be obtained at venues, replaced instead by a top
10 list for the most frequent visitors.

11
PLATFORMS
Existing social platforms like Twitter and Facebook
have succeeded in part thanks to the early
publication of an API (Application Programming
Interface) for third party developers to consume
data and create new utility for the respective
communities.
Foursquare, Gowalla and Brightkite all support
account sign up using Facebook and possess the
ability to publish into Facebook and Twitter. This
has no doubt helped accelerate adoption and
raised awareness of these new platforms in such a
rapid timeframe.
Brightkite and Foursquare both have rich, arguably
well-documented APIs. Gowalla has a read-only
API, which rather limits the creativity of third party
developers. It may come as no surprise then, that
foursquare has roughly five times the amount of
developers registered in their Developer Google
Group than Gowalla.
More and more third party apps are beginning
to appear. Yipit analyses your foursquare check
in history, then monitors those venues for offers.
Layar, the augmented reality browser, can reveal
who the mayor is, who’s currently checked in and
what tips lay in wait for you when you point your
handset in the direction of a Foursquare venue.
Perhaps the most interesting development using
all three of these location based services platforms
is the release of check.in. Built entirely in HTML5
by Brightkite, check.in aggregates place data from
Foursquare, Gowalla, and Brightkite to provide
a much richer location data set. Based on user
account settings, check.in has the ability to publish
into multiple social networking platforms.
However, whilst foursquare, Gowalla and Brightkite
fight amongst themselves for the title of Location
Based Services ‘Champion of the World’, they face
stiff competition from the established players, well
entrenched with their desktop and mobile services
and with significantly greater populations.
As indicated earlier, Twitter entered the “Place
Race” in late 2009 and Facebook are now
rumoured to be imminently launching their own
native LBS capability.
Both of these networks boast user numbers in
the 100’s of millions and a fair number of these
users already use mobile apps to share content
with their friends when out and about. Enhancing
these networks to be location capable is merely an
upgrade away.

12
THE IMPLICATIONS
OF GEOGRAPHY
It’s no surprise that many of the start-ups and
businesses in LBS are headquartered in cities with
significant conurbation in the United States, Asia
and Europe.
Take Four Square, headquartered in Manhattan
for example. With a city based almost entirely
on a grid system, largely flat (with one or 2 minor
inclines) and very much a ‘walking’ city, you have a
perfect virtual/physical ecosystem for services that
can attract users and businesses alike. Offering
the potential to be virtually present on every street
corner. From Delis and Diners, to Dry Cleaners.
Even the name Four Square very much reflects the
cities spatial characteristics.
In this sense the media overlay seems very logical
and the ability to navigate as such, simpler. Largely
attributable to these topographical traits being
mirrored in the break up of neighborhoods based
on what they offer to the ‘walker/browser’.
Factors such as commercial density and physical
land attributes very much play a part in defining
what services create the best fit for inhabitants or
visitors. Remembering we are of course blurring
the boundaries between the real and virtual
environments and therefore, there should be a
simple and elegant match as to how these worlds
interlock through a superimposed interface.
In all metropolitan environments there are different
areas of intensity. Whether they be socially driven
(pubs, restaurants, bars and the like), dwellings
or business hubs. Increasingly there is a trend
toward vast vertical developments and building
clusters offering mixed usage. Including of course,
residential.
These areas are where high population and traffic
provide the bases for complex interactions where
content can be created, fed and exchanged.
It’s no surprise it is also where traditional
media tends to cost the most.
Conversely. If we take a look at a city not reliant
on dense and sophisticated public transport
hubs with geographic sprawl and where much
of personal transportation is by car. You naturally
have less of a place where people walk. A different
set of conditions then might apply. Los Angeles or
Auckland would examples of this.
Again, marketers and advertisers should be
cogniscent of to whom it is they are trying to
connect with, and by what means and point in
time this contact will have the greatest effect and
resonance.

13
GRAB A SLICE
A fitting example of the differences might be 2
pizza restaurants offering specials on a slice of
Pizza. One on Bleeker Street in Manhattan and the
other in a mall in Reseda, CA.
Both share one trait, in that their street array is set
in grids, but that is where the comparison ends.
With the vast numbers of commuters in New York,
using high frequency public transport, walking or
cabbing, the city is very much about numerous
and frequent shorter journeys between points and
neighborhoods.
Individuals in general are walking past large
numbers of separate businesses in a single day.
Due in part of course to urban density and the
compactness of the location in terms of physical
area. The chance for ‘drop in’ traffic for example
then is high. Particularly if the offer of that discount
pizza slice occurs as you are walking past or in
the near vicinity around mealtime (especially if you
are identified as a regular). The business thereby,
creates virtual occassionality with its customers.
In the instance of a more suburban environment,
which may represented by longer stretches of
arterial roadway with distance to convergence
points being greater, you will often find clusters
of businesses or hubs such as malls or business
parks for example. Much of the ‘traffic’ therefore is
vehicular.
The timing of offers and the draw to a location may
therefore be less frequent and more suited to be
a planned experience for potential shoppers. The
occasion may be centered around managing a visit
to a location for multiple reasons.
To that point, that location may be well serviced by
having clusters of businesses link or aggregate their
respective offerings, in order to maximize ‘dwell
time’. This thereby creating the opportunity to have
multiple transactions or interactions in one locale,
or framed up all under the one roof.

14
COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS
Still staying on the fast food tip.
Let’s have a quick look at the McDonald’s digital
coupon mobile service in Japan. A truly ubiquitous
and mass-market application specific to a localized
mobile Ecosystem
This is particularly interesting due to the structure
of a joint venture between the fast food giant
and NTT’s DoCoMo; an abbreviation of “do
communications over the mobile network” and also
from the phrase ‘dokodemo’, meaning everywhere
in Japanese.
DoCoMo is the largest mobile operator in Japan
closely followed by KDDI’s ‘AU’ and Softbank, who
interestingly are to date the only carrier supporting
the iPhone in Japan.
Leveraging the vast network of McDonald’s retail
footprint and the love of coupons, users register
themselves to the service and are sent up to the
minute specials based on preference and location
specific data.
Coupon redemption can be via simply showing
the coupon on screen at point of sale or by
simply passing the RF enabled handset over the
integrated iD scanner (as below).
This not only facilitates an update on your profile
activity and redemption to the database, it also
facilitates cashless payment and sets up the next
offer to be sent to the user.
With nearly 80% of handsets all RF enabled
in Japan, increasingly these near field
capabilities are anchored to promotions driven
around specific locations.
A simple mechanic to illustrate this is releasing
coupons at around the time schools get out, and
where there is proximity of that school to an outlet.
The ability to resist that temptation just got a little
harder for some.
The difference here is in the way the Telco has
embedded a service into a mass outlet presence.
It hasn’t tapped into a social ecosystem such as
Mixi, the largest SNS in Japan (much loved on
mobile), but rather a bespoke offering around
POS and location services augmented by handset
capabilities.

15
PRIVACY AND CULTURAL
IMPLICATIONS
So, if we are all increasingly mobile, dwelling in
greater numbers in urban centres and letting
friends, very distant cousins and the world know
exactly where we are at any given moment in time,
how secure is this personal data and what degrees
of control are available to us, the end user?
Simply put, much of that will depend where you
are and under what laws the network you are tied
to operates within.
Ironically, in Japan which has increasingly
implemented almost impenetrable privacy laws to
protect the consumer. The Government enacted
a policy in 2007 that states that any phones
bought on new plans from that date would have
their handset’s GPS chips permanently enabled.
This was stated to be in the interests of ‘Law
Enforcement’.
As probably still the most advanced mobile
marketing enabled economy, Japan and its 109
Million handsets still have roughly only 2% of
adspend applicable to the mobile space as of
2009. This still represented a growth of 60% from
the previous year and double the global numbers
for that period.
Interestingly, while millions globally are happy
to share information over the PC centric web,
operators and advertisers are not sure what
levels of tolerance users will have regarding the
monitoring and sharing of their location based
activity from both a personal and commercial
standpoint.
From the early adopters view and for those now
reared in the era of the social web, the concept
of privacy and personal content differs greatly to
many from the preceding Geny Y or X’ers. For
many others, as was the case with e-commerce,
familiarization and trust could well take a little
longer.
Four Square, although relatively young, has around
1.3M users and is the largest of the LBS providers
at this time. Quite a small number when you think
of the global scale of Facebook’s dominion.
But despite the size of their ‘digital continent’ with
a massive population of over 400M+, they are still
not granted access to China’s over 1 billion souls.
China along with many other countries who have
their own well established social networks have
strongly integrated cultural and local attributes that
have created a firm foothold that will be hard to
shake. This notwithstanding governmental controls
that are also imposed in many states.
This is especially evident in the mobile sphere
where in certain countries it is quite normal to be
pushed advertisers messages and offers when
users are in proximity of an advertisers message or
offer. As indicated little earlier, this kind of conduct
would be illegal in certain countries in the APAC
region incurring heavy penalties unless adhering to
strict guidelines.
For many the thought of allowing brands
that close may be too close for comfort,
essentially viewed as ‘people tracking’.

16
PRIVACY AND CULTURAL IMPLICATIONS CONT..
It is this safeguarding of privacy that has to date,
remained firmly in the hands of the Telcos.
Application developers o n the other hand (some
merely months old as start ups), have the clear
responsibility of adhering to the principles of user
notice and consent. Being acutely aware also of
the differences from market to market, ensuring
users know how and to whom their location
information is to be disclosed.
To further highlight just how quickly this domain
is evolving, at the time of writing the iPhone ‘iOS4’
has recently been released. Interestingly (if not
slightly concerning), the new terms and conditions
regarding location information highlight what is
clearly Apple’s next play.
They state they have the right to “collect, use and
share precise [your gadget’s] real time geographic
location”.
Whilst Apple have been using location information
gathering for a while, the difference here is that by
consenting to accept the upgrade license, you are
giving Apple the license to both store and share
that information with 3rd parties.
This kind of information has usually been only
available from networks to the emergency services
in times of crime, or crisis. It begs the question
where AT&T is in all of this.
So, the ongoing question of privacy will need to be
anchored to degrees of transparency. Essentially,
what you as the individual are prepared to give up
for these services in terms of how, where and to
with whom your location and personal details may
be shared with. Doing this with the trust that those
who hold onto it (often in perpetuity), will do so
responsibly.
When you consider the speed and dynamics
of the M& A space in this sector, it is fair to
say that who has your information today, may
not necessarily be the company who uses it
tomorrow.

17
THE 4TH DIMENSION:
AR IS THE NEW VR
So, where to next?
Probably the most interesting and creative
interpretation of Location Based Services is the
advent of interpretive augmented reality.
Applications such as Layar or Acrossair, combine
multiple functions of smartphones into a visual
overlay, that has been referred to as ‘Terminator
Vision’.
These applications blur the lines between the virtual
and non-virtual spaces, combining the video/
camera functions, GPS, and accelerometers.
Many view this convergence as the truest
expression of LBS.
In essence, It’s a real time merging of two parallel
universes. The cybersphere with the biosphere.
Science Fiction? Maybe 3 years ago. But if we
look at how rapidly this integration of a few simple
handset features has taken shape, it does seem
that the marveled sequences in certain movies just
5 years ago are now fast becoming the domain of
anyone who buys a new smart handset.
We are indeed entering the era of the ‘Geoweb’ or
‘V-Sphere’.
Virtual Reality essentially provided us with a world
that was tangible in a visual and spatial sense,
but largely based on fantasy. What we have with
Augmented Reality is the real world practical
application of vision, experience and information
at a human level, overlaid with real time data into a
system that is both sensory and participatory.
Sekai Camera (or world camera) is an application
from Tokyo based Tonchidot.
It is similar in many ways to Mobilizy’s ‘Wikitude’,
but takes the concept of cross-networking
between businesses and individuals to a level
that might strike the right balance of how the
social, virtual and commercial layers harmoniously
converge.
Although still in Beta stage, there is a logical and
personal way that metadata attaches itself to a
specific location and encourages exchange within
the app.
The concept here is that visitors, brands and
businesses literally ‘Air Tag’ these spaces. So as
an example, a restaurant may leave its location
data, directions, menus, reviews and specials of
the day. A previous visitor or patron can leave their
comments in text or voice or upload images or
video of their experience.
The application of this in the sense of a traveler
turning up in a new city for the 1st time on the
recommendation of a peer, could turn up and have
their friends experience left for them in rich detail. A
sort of rich, virtual Lonely Planet.
The restaurant, being aware of this exchange,
could leave coupons or offers for that person to
take up there and then.

18
Taking that to another highly creative expression is
iButterfly. Created by Behemoth (no pun intended)
agency Dentsu.
By loading the app, maps depict active locations
and by simply holding the camera up, ‘virtual
butterflies’ float around, which you need to swipe
at and ‘catch’. Each butterfly collected may contain
a different offer, which can then be redeemed at
the location you are in.
Again, a simple, elegant and highly creative use of
3 core functions of the handset.
This is still in trial, but clearly illuminates the
potential for rich creative territory for marketers and
advertisers alike.
THE 4th DIMENSION: AR IS THE NEW VR CONT..

19
WRAP UP
A great many of the readers of this piece will
already be active users of some, or many of the
services we have covered briefly here.
The key question for many however, will be what
are the real and practical applications for brands,
agencies and marketers when it comes to
activating the potential of the LBS ecosystem.
The truth is, we are very much at the gates to a
new frontier if we indeed believe this is the ‘5th
cycle of computing’. Many of the services in play
today will evolve and innovate independently, or in
turn be acquired by the ‘bigger fish’ to form part of
a wider service offering.
Moreover, as every service sits on a small but
increasingly powerful piece of hardware, it remains
to be seen where handset innovation will lead and
drive how these services may evolve and expand
their influence. Initially for the end user and then
importantly, how these platforms move from
making connections, to actual monetization for
brands and businesses.
There are a few key points to be considered when
looking at how LBS can integrate into marketing
activities. Not surprisingly these resonate with
the traditional social media tenets of finding an
audience (or a voice), and tapping into the potential
for dialogue, collaboration and exchange.
Consider the kind of targeting that will mix
well with the platform offering and ensure
that the tone and creative approach matches
the technology, interface and user/audience
expectation
Assess and tap into the utility and community
aspects of what the service provides to the
user. Why are they there? These applications
are essentially ‘enablers’ so getting in the
way of these core functions might not work to
advantage if perceived as interruptive
As devices are proliferating and evolving, there
will increasingly be new hardware to consider.
With this in mind also, the functionality of these
services will need to continually adapt. It’s
important to think of how any integration will fit
the experience, no matter what their handset
capabilities are
Think of the physical landscape. How this
overlays with the objectives of the activity
and what the user will respond to based on
the social and geographic attributes in each
location
Plan for and understand the privacy
implications dependent on the service and
what parameters and legislation may be in
place. As indicated, dependent on where you
are, there may be significant differences in how
this is managed and how you would then plan
activity around compliancy. Mitigate any risk to
the business objectives and the user
So, whilst we have a uniquely fresh take on the
role of the handset and a very interesting potential
future with a vast global audience. It is still a
nascent era for mobile marketing and LBS. It
remains to be seen how marketers can prosper
from what has been established as a beachhead
from these start-ups and their early adopters.
One thing however is certain. It is one of the
most interesting plays in the digital space when
combined with the almost exponential growth of
mobile social networking, and will be sure to be
among the most hotly contested for dominance in
the coming 12 to 18 months.
Watch that space.

Prepared by Keith Pinney,
Channel Planning Director,
AIM Proximity, Auckland
With assistance from Ian Hulme and Tenzin Pooch.

Location Based Services

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