Two-thirds of users interested in smart content


It’s no secret that mobile phone users have graduated from simple voice and text usage of their devices. eMarketer estimates more than 650 million people worldwide, or 13.4% of mobile subscribers, use the Web via a mobile device at least monthly in 2010.

According to a Tellabs survey conducted by The Nielsen Company, two-thirds of mobile users around the globe are interested in “smart” services that would feed them information based on personal preferences, location, time of day and social setting.

Mobile users expect these services from a variety of providers, including mobile operators, other Internet application providers, and a combination of many sources. Consumers placed significant trust in their mobile carriers in terms of protecting the information needed to provide smart services, and overall selected carriers more often than any other group as the “most appropriate” provider of services.

Consumers’ expectations regarding smart location-based services closely mirrored their desires in other areas, such as news, media and entertainment content, where less than one-half named mobile carriers as the best source of information, followed by other Web providers and a combination.

When it came to shopping services, however, there was a notable difference: Mobile carriers dropped somewhat in importance, and advertisers became a much more prominent source of information.

US marketers have already begun experimenting with exactly this type of smart shopping service. “Geo-fencing” provides personalized marketing messages to shoppers based on their location or proximity to a marketer’s store. 1020 Placecast, for example, piloted a ShopAlerts program that was embraced by mobile users
 

• 60% said the location-triggered messages were “cool” and “innovative.”
• 79% claimed to be more likely to visit a store.
• 65% made a purchase.
• 73% were likely to use the service again.

[emarketer]

Recently previewed at CEATEC 2009, the “thrown mail” from NTT Docomo is certainly novel.  By shaking your phone (”throwing”) towards your partner you can transfer a mail message to their phone.

Essentially, this is an application using GPS with a sensor that measures the position of your partner and the speed of movement of their mobile. The more you shake or move your phone, the further you can “throw” the message, and so the activity feels like a game of catch.

It is also possible to leave your “thrown” messages at a designated place, to be read by someone when they happen to be passing through. In this way you can use the service without having to assign a partner at the time of “throwing”. This element of the service will be of more interest commercially, in that messages and information about services and stores in a certain area could be left “floating”, ready to be picked up by willing consumers. Here the application becomes an intuitive search function, offering choices and information tailored to a specific locale and user.

In order to combat issues of privacy NTT has made the system so that you must have been accepted by your partner to participate (receiving, sending).

This is a fun and playful development of phone communication. But not just a game, it could have wider commercial implications, in that stores could provide members with special services and information when they pass nearby to an outlet. NTT is offering users a service that carries over into current mobile navigation services but in a very user-tailored (users give permission to certain stores or chains to receive their data) and instantaneous way.



[cscout]

It was back in 2003 that we began covering nethoods, as our sister site calls them, and since then GPS and mobile technologies have greatly increased locally focused possibilities. BlockChalk is a new site that aims to provide the online equivalent of a neighbourhood bulletin board where residents can use their mobile phones to leave location-based messages for other people in their community.

Billed as “the voice of your neighbourhood,” BlockChalk lets mobile phone users leave messages (“chalks,” as the service calls them) on their block, their street, at the coffee shop or anywhere they happen to be. Neighbourhood tips, restaurant recommendations, pothole alerts or even lost pets are all perfect candidates for location-tagged message topics that can be left on BlockChalk, which allows other users of the service in the same area to reply either publicly or privately. No signup is required to use the service, and BlockChalk never reveals a user's identity or exact location unless they specifically request it. The mobile application is now available for iPhone, Palm Pre and Android-based handsets, with Blackberry and Nokia support coming soon. Launched early this year, BlockChalk is now used in more than 114 countries, 8,700 cities and 13,700 or so neighborhoods. The Bay Area startup is also in the process of integrating its service with Twitter's new geo-enabled API, it says.

Besides helping to connect neighbours with each other and with a wealth of hyperlocal information, BlockChalk also promises a world of advertising opportunities for local businesses; for developers, an API is already available. One to partner with in your neck of the location-based woods...? (Related: Connecting neighbours and landlords online — More neighbourhood problem-solving: SeeClickFix.)

[springwise]

Loopt, the location-based sharing service, has taken the logical next step for its system: Loopt on the iPhone now includes location-based advertising. We've been expecting this, but is it a sign the floodgates of location-ads are open?

Loopt is in roughly the same game as Yelp, Foursquare, and a number of other players in location-based social networking. It's also a little like Google Latitude, in that users can see in more-or-less real time where their friends are located (and what they're up to, via status updates), rather than having to "check in" to specific locales like in Foursquare. So it's really perfectly logical that it take the step to deliver specific location-based ads to its users in geolocated real time too.

It's partnered with Mobile Spinach to give its users special offers and discounts from businesses that are near their specific location--meaning that you'll be able to get a discount by showing the Loopt alert message to a restaurant, for example. To start with it'll only work in San Francisco, since Loopt is combining its user demographic data with Mobile Spinach's list of local business to ensure that the right kind of service is delivered as an ad to its users, as well as being merely location-specific. Ultimately the system will roll out in New York, L.A,. and other U.S. cities, and it'll become more sophisticated in time.

This sophistication will actually give the advertising partners an amazing new vehicle for influencing sales: Say a coffee shop has a regular lull between 11 a.m. and lunchtime--it could time its Loopt-related discount ads to try to attract more drop-in trade at this time, or it could associate your Loopt account with a "10 drinks and the 11th is free"-type loyalty system.

All of which means that the business of advertising is going to get ever-more deeply wormed into our daily lives. Because though not all of us are users of location-based social networking, it is clear that it's an exploding phenomenon, and it'll continue to be so as more and more of us carry around location-aware smartphones. The reason location-based ads will boom is that they enable a degree of precision in audience targeting that's rarely been possible before, and that could mean lucrative returns for the companies concerned. And though your mind may be filled with Minority Report-style horror visions of nagging ads at every turn in a public street (assuming this tech develops to its highest possible level), this might actually be good for us as consumers: If you're going to get ads served up to you, come what may, wouldn't you prefer it if they're actually for stuff you're interested in?

Oh, and one last thing: We know Apple's going to be getting into the mobile ad game itself, thanks to its purchase of Quattro Wireless. It's also recently forced developers to strip any location-based ad powers out of apps, indicating that it too will be playing in this space (and who better to exploit the full powers of the iPhone but its inventors?). But Loopt escapes this injunction because location-sensing is actually a core feature of the application. Meaning Apple is, for the time being, happy to have competition in location-based ads.

[fastcompany]