Another large area that use location data is of course augmented reality (AR) services. Layar is probably one of the more prominent ones. It is only with good use of positioning that we unlock one of the most hyped values of the mobile. So sorry for  uttering these words that would generate “boo!!” cheers and tomatoes if mentioned from the stage at any mobile conference. “The mobile is always with you”. Well, if the service knows where you and your mobile are, the service can do more for you. Pretty basic stuff. As often with new technology entertainment is the first area of application. Therefore we see gaming and online dating as the first obvious areas of application. Search is the first utility type application and it makes sense. (Try the wikipedia layer in Layar for instance and you will get a good WOW feeling!)

Many express fear of breached personal integrity with LBS services. That is often a misconception, especially with all the services I have mentioned so far. They are all location aware only and are not revealing to anyone else what your location is. As mentioned above, the service you use need to know where you are to deliver real value to you. This is all seamlessly happening in the background.

Take the dating scenario. For the user the end goal is to meet a new person in real life. With location in the matching algorithm you get more value. Now you know the persons on top of the list fits your criteria best and is nearest to you. If you want to send an invite to meet up for a coffee this afternoon it is likely you are near enough to make that possible. Disclaimer: I am the founder of Souldate, a full-blown dating service in your mobile with positioning.

Games and communities with location involved has a large potential. From the location information you can extend that thought to RFID and touch based things to prove you have been at a place or met a person. This opens up for scavenger hunts, detective/mystery games to mention a few. Stand alone titles/services in this area or even more interesting maybe is to extend this into advertising in sponsored games.

There are some impediments of course. The cost of LBS data from providers of the data, be it operators or aggregators. A cost per location request will kill most ideas. Companies building business model on monetising location data sold wholesale are doomed. Way forward via APIs to data from handsets with apps for positioning or GPS. Examples are of course Android, iPhone and Vodafone 360 API. This is also one great example why carriers do not have to become dumb pipes. They can be smart pipes by offering these APIs and others.

What are your thoughts on LBS? Is it still BS or will it really happen in 2010?

LBS has been one of the long lasting hyped functionalities in mobile services. One of the classic cases is the location aware advertising model. I am walking down a street, approach a Starbucks and voila I get an MMS with a voucher for a half-price latte. Only thing is, I need to be signed up to or have downloaded an app that tracks me in realtime. But the big challenge is the targeting. Just because I am approaching a Starbucks does not mean I am in the mood for coffee. I might be on my way to the health clinic next door to Starbucks for an appointment with a cognitive therapy expert to kick my caffeine addiction.

But location awareness has a strong value added in many cases. Lately I have spent much time thinking about LBS in the context of dating and matching. The reason being the recent launch of Souldate (that I am a shareholder of, to be clear and transparent).

In the dating scenario locaion awareness makes a lot of sense. Even without precise realtime location a la GPS. Just a quick positioning at sign-in of the service that is then used to rank all matches in order of geographic proximity without revelaing the location of any member adds value. As a user you know that the people at the top of the list match your criteria and vice versa, they are also the ones nearest to you. Since dating services are all about getting people to meet in real life, I know that the top results are the ones that most likley are easiest and quickest to meet up with.

Makes sense? Let me know what you think. Take the poll!

There were a few thems the I picked up. Mind you I went to CTIA with my mobile social networking, advertisig and multi-player poker glasses on. That was my mission to learn and sell. As you might know I am one of the founders of both Acemob and Souldate, and these ventures are what pay the bills these days. Here we go:

1. Business models

Everywhere I went, the theme was business models. On the panel I sat in on, on the show floor at the parties at night, business models where a common theme. What’s happening here then?

One big change is the on/off deck distinction is about to fade away. On-deck is not the only way to get distribution these days. Operators are realising this and are opening up for easier access to their portals. They can thereby also cut some staff costs as well.

The effect of this is that the content provider will have to carry more of the marketing cost and get the full responsibility for discovery. It also means the operators will have to stop milking their abuse of the billing monopoly they have. Stealing 30-40% for a transaction that Visa charge 5% for is not viable in the long run and is hampering innovation and growth. Please read this great post buy Steven Spencer on this subjet and app stores etc. 

2. Advertising

Advertising is cool, but in most cases will not be enough. Additional revenue streams with virtual goods or freemium is needed. There are probably some arbitrage possibilities or rather timing gains to make to go build a user base in a virgin market when CPCs are very low but rising. However you are then banking on that you keep the users long enough to make money on them when the advertising market is more valuable. A risk, but it might work. It’s about timing and guts I guess.

3. Role of Social networks

In our panel we had some interesting exhanges about social selling. Both Glu and iPlay see the social networks as a distribution channel. Nothing is more powerful than word of mouth, so they try to tap into social netoworks or use social networking infrastructure to give their fans the tools to sperad the word. One cool service I came across here was mpowerplayer. Baiscally it is a social seling tool. Web based play of java games with community features built in to facilitate spreading the word. iPlay use this for their recent launch of their Fast & Furious game. With links to the portals and decks where the game can be bought. This drives revenues and is one way to facilitate discovery, one of the main challenges in selling stuff in a small screen world.

4. Health

I also noted mHealth being a trend. This came from other reports (and here) and comments from people I talked to in Las Vegas. Unfortunately this was an area I missed to cover entirely personally, but hey you can only do so many things. The good thing is that it is now on the radar. My personal belief is that it is a huge area where mobile really can make the world a better place. The formation of the Wireless Health Institute in San Diego is one milestone.

With these words I will head for the ol’ egg hunts and whatnot. See you after the weekend!

• 62% do not yet view their mobile device as an extension of their computer.
• Only 23% feel that they have more or the same level of control over their mobile device as they have over their computer.
• 70% have never downloaded an application to their mobile device.
• 67% want to be able to choose their mobile applications for themselves, rather than have their carriers choose for them.

So basically the consumer says: I know what I want, let me choose and make it much easier to use and earn the trust for me to spend time and money with you/your service.

Trust is a big thing here. The carriers have been shocking numerous consumers with data charges, content providers off-deck have been ripping off customers with unstoppable subscriptions schemes etc. This is changing to the better though. We are getting transparency in pricing and the scamsters are being reigned in. 

The play book going forward must be to offer choice, easy access and most of all “it”, the x-factor for the specific target groups. What can this service/product do for me?, is the question the consumer wants answers to. Fast. In about 3 seconds on your site/deck/ad they need to get what’s in it for them. There is no recipe for this part. Here the gap in conversion can be huge. My experience is that rapid prototyping and adjust as you is what works best.

Currently I am involved in launching Souldate (site in Swedish), a new mobile dating service with localisation. We are adjusting and tweaking the service daily. We started off with pretty scary conversion numbers. A few workdays later we have improved them substantially. In this case will market the service in multiple channels. TV is about all we are not using. Customer registration is done in any of three channels – SMS, wap and web. This means we have to constantly evaluate to see what we should focus on.

But all this work with constant improvements are lost if the  hygiene factors trust and transparency are not in place. Here we all have to pull together to change, blow whistles and make sure we earn the trust of our customers. Without it we can pack up and go home.