Welcome to the LBC (Location Based Craziness)
November 15th, 2009 | Published in Mobile Apps, Mobile Communities, Mobile Devices, Mobile Services, Social Impact
More and more we see the emergence of Location Based Services for those using smartphones (or app-phones as I heard recently). Although there is not a definitive app the space is getting crowded.
Take for example Loopt, a company that offers a service to help you find your friends on the go. They are now introducing a new search service called Pulse. Not only it will provide suggestions according to where you are, but also based on your past history will generate a personalized and ever-changing list according to the time of day and also based on where you and your friends have been. This makes the suggestions and information even more relevant to the user. But that is not all. Pulse includes also a ranking to suggest places that are popular among other users. This opens a great deal of possibilities for the users and also for the retail and food industry who are planning to offer coupons to potential visitors. Everyone wins.
Last night I had a chat with my friend Alex Holden and he pointed out something that makes a lot of sense. How come popular sites like facebook for example are not picking up on the fact that people would like to know where their friends have been, or even if their friends are close by. Using a filtering system you can catalog people that you really know, people that you’ve met and people that you would like to meet.
Aka Aki is has a similar concept. So is Google Latitude. The problem is, that they are lagging behind in popularity. Even my 75 year old dad has a facebook account! Then again I wouldn’t be surprise if that feature will come sometime soon in a new update.
