The promise of LBS is providing useful information and services at right place and right time using demographic, contextual and location awareness via the mobile. Primary applications are mostly in advertising, navigation and social networking. LBS applications have garnered the most hype since the beginning, and yet, critical mass eludes them.
With the technical challenges more or less resolved, I believe user acceptance, owing primarily due to privacy and security concerns, is the biggest challenge it needs to overcome. LBS apps face distrust by users owing to the loss of personal freedom and control over the technology e.g. intrusive advertising, commercial pressure, loss of autonomy, etc.
It is crucial for the service providers to maintain a level of trust with users by acting transparently with regards to personal privacy translating into strict application of a code of ethics on the service use combined with clear and simple information for consumers on the usages that could be made of their location data / ensure consumers have the means of controlling what they can and cannot do i.e. right not to be located, not to be disconnected, choose who will have access to his data, etc.
Mobile phone enables real-time feedback from the users and enables him to live in the moment. When you are surfing the Web with a stationary PC at home, you are either accessing information about some past events, or some real-time information about some event a distance away. In contrast, with mobile phone you can take part in the event, capture it, provide comments and share all this with others. Mobile phone therefore provides richer social interaction. The core of mobility is not movement but context. Adding context-awareness to services brings about complexity, but at the same time lots and lots of possibilities.
In a previous post, I had written about a few mobile social networking scenarios. Now before we go designing something, it’s important to understand the user needs that the product will satisfy. Here I want to put forth my take on what user needs I felt a mobile social network can satisfy based on which I created those scenarios.
Get updates on what’s going on with my social circle whenever I have time or feel the need to check on them.
Conversation is what the whole deal is about. It’s easy to see who’s available to chat right now and a conversation can be started anytime/anywhere.
Transmit my location to let others know where I am at the moment so they can interact with me based on that
Find out if there are any friends near my location. This would be better executed with a map as user gets a visual reference of proximity of his friends, and can figure out exactly where all of them are easily in reference to his own location, much more powerful than say 10 street addresses. Narrowing down or expanding the field is useful if to get him those friends in range with whom he can interact with at that moment
Instantly share my thoughts or pics/videos with my social circle and get instant feedback from those who may be tuned in.
I’m at a location and curious about what others have done at or said about this location, phone can bring up photos, videos of the location and comments entered for the location
As the number of friends increase, the noise level increases and it’s very tiresome to sort through them on a mobile. If there’s a person or group that user is most interested in at any time, he shouldn’t have to parse through the entire feed, he should be able to get updates just from that person or group.
All said and done, privacy is a big concern. There are some things I can share with all my friends, others I only want to share with close friends and some I want to share only with family. These concerns must be addressed and user should be put in total control of his privacy settings.
For a mobile social network to be of any use to me, it must work on my friend’s phones as well.
I feel a mobile social network is best implemented when integrated with the Phonebook. See Finally… Phonebook gets social for why I think so and advances being made on this front.
I have always believed that mobile phone is the best platform for socializing because the Phonebook already contains all the contacts that you care about, now you might go on binges and vampire bites with your 1000+ contacts on Facebook or MySpace, but those in your Phonebook (and email contact list) are the one’s that really matter.
I believe the best (or widely accepted) mobile social network will be the one which will integrate with the mobile’s Phonebook. I’m glad to see advances are being made in this area by Zyb. What’s important is that it needs to support the phones that my friends use, till then it’s of no use to me. Good news is that guys at Zyb understand this and support the widest range of phones that I’ve seen either directly or via 3rd parties.
Here are a few things Zyb enables:
Where are you
If your friends allow their location to be visible to you, it points them out on a map. It also shows a list of friends near you
What are you up to
Shows your friends’ Twitter and Facebook status. Also shows your Flickr photo updates and blog updates among other things. There’s even an icon that indicates if someone’s available, busy etc
What’s your new number
If your friends change their number or Avatar pic, it’s automatically updated in your ZYB phonebook
This is good, but I want more…
Now if only this could be integrated with the native phonebook on the mobile, and if someone could merge this with my email contacts so I have “one” device independent contact list
Another one in the “What I want…” series. I’m focusing on ‘Local Search on mobile’ and not ‘Search on mobile’ because people searching from their mobiles will usually be doing so on the go and hence would mostly be focusing on local content like searching for something or someplace close by (or someone, but that’s part of mobile social networking, although I do see a huge overlap between these two).
‘Local Search’ is a space “begging” for attention. There are a few players out there but there’s so much more than can be done to give a better experience to the users.
Study analyzing movement of people
Before we delve into the scenarios, let’s take a look at the findings of a recent study published in Nature which analyzed the movement of 100K people.
One key startling discovery was that “despite the diversity of their travel history, humans follow simple reproducible patterns” which in plainspeak means that people tend to visit the same places again and again.
Does this mean that local search on mobiles is a doomed concept? I tend to believe that there’s scope for services that enable us to interact better with our local environment. And the need for local search/service becomes even more important when people do wander out to new places.
Location brings context and this is what we need to focus on most.
Pre-requisites
Needless to say, I shouldn’t have to tell the application where I am, it’s supposed to know that. Andrew Grill rightly points out“True transparent local search will arrive when I don’t have to tell the application that I want to be found – it finds me and caches the location ahead of me needing it”
I should be able to search from whichever medium is comfortable to me (via SMS, Voice, Browser or Native-App/Widget). This will ensure that the service is available universally and not dependent on type of phone (as the tier increases, the experience gets richer)
Since we are focusing on location, maps will play an important role here, wherever possible, every result has to be mappable with directions to the end-point from where I am right now.
To enable a ’socially enriched’ experience, I should be able find out what others who visited the location/business had to say about it (or pictures/videos they shared). More importantly, If any of my friends had anything to say about it.
A few Scenarios
I’m looking for something to eat/drink and I enter say ‘pizza’ or ‘Chinese’ and I see listing of relevant businesses around me, their specials for the day are listed along with the prices. I call them to check for vacancy or make a reservation. I can check out their menu while on the way and make my choice before I reach there.
I’m out shopping for say ‘Jeans’, I again get a listing of stores around me with the item prioritized by those who have a Sale on.
If I’m looking to catch the latest movie, I’m shown the theaters around me with time-slots in which its airing and option to book the ticket from the mobile itself. Alternatively, If I’m interested in a particular theater, I’m shown the movies it’s playing (with ratings) along with the time slots (and the option to buy the ticket, of course)
Interaction Design
Like always, Interaction design will play a key role in enabling the right experience. Unable to suppress the designer in me, I can’t help but list some basic design elements of the main screen of the web-page/native-app
A text-box with a label “What are you looking for?”
Options to go to primary categories like “Food”, “Movies” etc which when clicked come up with relevant location-centric results with the behavior specified in scenarios
Option to check “Where I am right now” on the map
Much more is possible with Context Awareness
Context awareness has the potential to enable much more than local search. Let’s say I’m in Delhi where it’s sunny and going to Mumbai where it’s raining. When I reach Mumbai the app understands the change in environment (via say local weather update) and suggest that I buy an umbrella and lists/displays-on-map nearby shops where I can buy it from.
Note: A few things I mentioned here are not possible currently due to technology/regulatory/infrastructure constraints, but I think those hurdles will be overcome soon.
Stumbled upon this post by Josh Lowensohn which talks about a new service in town….Adocu
It’s a Twitter clone. There’s no 140 character limit, but spaces are not allowed, you have to fit everything in one word like “whatingodsnameisthis”.
They call it Nanoblogging.
I’m a bit skeptical about this but then I was skeptical about Twitter as well and look how it turned out. I think I’ll wait around to see if a community builds and go from there.
Couple of voices from Twitterverse
bloggi no, nanoblogging seems to be stretching things a bit too far
lgr I understand what they are trying to do. Don’t know if I would use it, but I did not like Twitter at first
codyrobert I kinda agree with @lgr Didn’t like twitter to start. But really, one word? Would work in chamorro lang.
In a previous post Social Networking and the Mobile Phone, I had discussed how mobile can extend the reach of a social network and open up new ways of socializing. I have gone through a couple of mobile social networks out there and they are nowhere near my expectations. So I decided to list down a few scenarios for you to consider.
Scenarios
I open the client from phone menu, it opens quickly and I get recent photos/updates from my friends.
I can easily send updates from main page itself.
I open a map and my friends are mapped onto their locations in the map, I can narrow down the map by giving a radius of say 1 KM, 5 KM, 10 KM.
I can easily start conversations with my friends
I can classify friends in groups/categories and choose how much of my profile is visible to which group
I can follow updates from a single friend or a group/category
I am at a location and I can choose to see who else from the network is there, I can see their profiles and nudge someone I want to connect with. If they nudge back I can start a conversation.
When I post something, I can also send the update to any other networks I’m active in as well, including say Twitter, Facebook or FriendFeed.
I take photos and videos from the camera and select post to <network> from the menu, I add my comments, geo-tags are automatically added and media is uploaded
I enter (or point to) a location in the map; and photos, videos of the location and comments entered for the location are shown in a map indicating exact positions of photo/video/comment entry.
My location is automatically updated. I can choose the level of detail of the location i.e. update only city, or just the locality or exact location. I can also choose to go “offline” where my location will not be published.
If I just want to send a text update, I am able to do so via SMS.
Listed above are a few things I want to be able to do, now here’s something I don’t want to do- Check for compatibility with my phone, download a client etc; it should just be there on the main menu. Social networks that tie up with carriers and/or handset manufactures will be better positioned than those who are not.
This is just the beginning
This is just the “What to implement” part (and that too off the top of my head), what’s equally important is “How it’s implemented”. This is where Visual and Interaction design will play a key role in designing the experience. Making sure interface is clear (as in not cluttered) and visually appealing, user is easily able to do things that he wants to do (as in relevant options are readily available, contextual navigation will play a part here) etc etc. Oh and don’t forget performance….oh yes, engineering has a part to play as well
In a previous post Social Networking and the Mobile Phone, I had written about the values mobile phone brings to a social network. Social networking, by definition, is about people that want to keep in touch with their friends and share info among them by the hour. Now, you can’t expect someone to roam around with a laptop all the time and this is where mobile phone comes into the picture. With the ability of mobile devices to operate in many different social spaces, both virtual and real world, the expectation that mobile will be the future of social networking is not as far fetched as it seemed only one year ago.
A growing number of global mobile phone users are accessing social networks over the mobile internet, according to research from Nielsen Mobile.
Kent Ferguson, Client Services Manager, Nielsen Mobile had this to say about the data: “Social networking is already a global phenomenon, and mobile could be the next big thing in the space. Large numbers of people are interacting with their social networking profiles while they’re on the move. There could be increased consumer demand for mobile social networking driven by the flat fee price plans offered by the leading operators that give subscribers unlimited mobile Internet access.”
eMarketer is predicting that mobile social networks will rise from 82 million users in 2007 to 800 million worldwide by 2012.
This growth will primarily come from existing social networks shifting their coverage to the mobile, however, mobile-only social networks will also play a part.
Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and co-author of the report says “Along with the rapidly growing audience, marketers are drawn to mobile social networking because it creates a unique context in which to promote their goods and services, It goes beyond simply linking people with digital content by adding the immediacy of sharing with friends—a very powerful marketing proposition.”
Laurel Papworth captures the evolution and trends in a wonderful presentation
When I first came across Twitter, I couldn’t understand it. So I can put 140 characters on a web site to tell the world what I am doing at the moment… Who cares? And why would I want to know what others happen to be doing at the exact moment they decide to share it with the world?
I was bewildered by the Twitter phenomenon sweeping the world. There are 100s of twitter apps in web, mobile, desktop. It’s everywhere. ReadWriteWeb recently wrote about which clients people use most to Tweet. Twitter addiction has moved to the physical world, people are going about wearing Twitter T-shirts.
I thought I may have judged Twitter to quickly and decided to dig a little deeper. Read research reports, added people and followed them, went over various blogs that talk about twitter, poured through the comments. Posted questions on various discussions forums and followed responses to questions posted by others. I’ve been doing this for past 2 months and I think I’ve come to some understanding on why we tweet.
Twitter’s power really comes from the feeling of intimacy with people as we get a glimpse into their lives. The beauty of Twitter is that it enables different types of conversations over a very simple medium without getting caught up in the technical intricacies of transports.
I believe twittering phenomenon is time/space agnostic. Twitter is just re-enabling needs that have not been satisfactorily met since humans moved out ofthe village town hall, pub etc. “where everyone knows your name”. As in a physical village, you’re more connected or more involved with some people than with others. Similarly in Twitter you’ll find that you talk or share with some people more often than others. To some degree, there is a behavioral difference, in that we have to consciously push updates at Twitter.
According to a research report, following are the main categories of users on Twitter:
Information Source An information source is also a hub and has a large number of followers. This user may post updates on regular intervals or infrequently. Despite infrequent updates, certain users have a large number of followers due to the valuable nature of their updates. Some of the information sources were also found to be automated tools posting news and other useful information on Twitter.
Friends Most relationships fall into this broad category. There are many sub-categories of friendships on Twitter. For example a user may have friends, family and co-workers on their friend or follower lists. Sometimes unfamiliar users may also add someone as a friend.
Information Seeker An information seeker is a person who might post rarely, but follows other users regularly.
Reasons for Twittering
I’ve compiled various reasons for which people use Twitter which I came across while poring through comments/responses to blogs and questions
Self-promotion – create personal brand awareness on some level
Share and gather information that is pertinent to one’s interests
Sharing useful resources
Track on a much closer to realtime basis what people are thinking and doing. At the same time, one can then have a choice to participate in the thread.
Stay in touch with your close ones
See what’s happening with your friends
As an educational and conversational tool
Live event sharing– esp. for people who are not there, but even among attendees
Closed groups such as a task-specific team or attendees of a conference
Ideas — asking and sharing
Learning about news before it spreads far and wide, for both industry and general news items. News spread faster on Twitter than on blogs
Standard networking and communications with peers
Creating much closer links with people despite not often physically meeting very often if at all
Brainstorming
Polling
Discovering new interesting people and networking with them
Using the search box to find others interested in similar issue
Research – by subscribing to feeds of smart people in the field
As a targeted communication platform – Send responses @ a person or D (Direct to a person)
Keeping up with tech – All the big names on the internet use Twitter. Subscribe to them and see what’s new and exciting.
Tracking topics – enter ‘track SOA’ and anyone that posts a twitter message about SOA gets sent to you. A great way to hear what people are saying about a topic. To remove it just ‘untrack SOA’
Emergency – just see what happened with the wildfires. San Diego fire department broadcasted alerts on twitter
Television – watch TV together and react on it through Twitter
Stalking – Strange as it may sound, this post by Laurel unveils this trend
Twitter as a business tool
Drawing attention to/promoting products/content. Sending out special offers
Viral marketing, and for pre-release product announcements
News websites deliver information and updates using it
Spreading the word about stuff we’re working on (announcements, etc)
Gathering feedback from the community (asking questions)
Customer service (subscribing to mentions of our company, responding to people personally)
Getting pitched and communicating with PR agencies
For project updates – send a quick one-liner and you can see all in one place / timeline
Ask the expert – fling your question from wherever you are -up to the twitter network / global water cooler and get an answer.
reach out by cross-posting information from regular blog
Business bloggers are finding that tools like Twitter help draw traffic to their blog posts and give them a way to stay connected without the commitment of writing lengthy blog posts.
Twitter is not for everyone
Twitter can be sensory overload due to a high degree of micro information the user will need to self-parse. A lot of Twitter skeptics are put off by the banal nature of some of the discussion. This is really a limitation of the current Twitter clients, though. Twitter will become even more valuable when clients are available that let you intelligently filter through tweets for content that you’re interested in.
Conclusion
Love it or hate it Twitter is a force to be reckoned with, and provides a great many opportunities beyond simply telling the world what you ate for breakfast. By making it easy for people to send out short (140 characters or less) messages to their personal webpage, friends and followers, and even the Twitter community at large, the service makes for a compelling way to get the word out fast.
Whereas blog posts and emails tend to be longer-winded affairs, Twitter posts are closer in form to the SMS messages you send from your mobile phone, and in fact it is possible to access Twitter in this very way, in addition to using the Twitter website, Instant Messaging or one of the growing number of desktop applications available.
With international favorites like Facebook, Orkut (yes, it’s back) and MySpace gaining traction in Indian markets, it’ll be really difficult for the “me too” websites with a “follow the leader” mentality to hold out in this space. In a product where the content is 100% user created, a country specific product seems out of place.
Big multinational players are capable of investing vast sums to innovate and provide free services sustained by advertising networks such as Google. Any local company which takes these guys head-on in doomed to fail. Unless they innovate and come up with out-of-the-box solutions by playing to their local strengths which will be difficult for the international giants to pursue, they are bound to fizzle out or “at best” get acquired for local user base (which again is something some of the sites may be praying for).
Social networking via the mobile phone is a big buzz these days. MOBILE user generated content and social networking was worth 3.45 B in 2006 (don’t have access to current numbers but I bet it’ll be more than double that). New services for mobile phones have been developed that allow people to create, develop, and strengthen social ties. MySpace and Facebook have each made deals with wireless carriers to develop limited versions of their services on mobile phones.
The core values that a mobile phone brings to a social network are:
Always-on communication medium
Location
Always-on Communication Medium
When I say communication medium, I don’t just mean 2 way communication, it also includes the 1 way feeds on status updates, picture/video/audio uploads, group messages etc;
Mobile phone enables real-time feedback from the users and enables “living in the moment”. When you are surfing the Web with a stationary PC at home, you are either accessing information about some past events, or some real-time information about some event a distance away. In contrast, with mobile phone you can take part in the event, capture it, provide comments and share all this with others. Mobile phone therefore provides richer social interaction.
Location, location, location
Mobility implies movement and therefore location-based/location-aware services become more important. There are already some location based services which take into account user-generated content. For example traffic jams and radars can be detected based on information shared voluntarily by other users of the system. However, the core of mobility is not movement but context. Adding context-awareness to services brings about complexity, but at the same time lots and lots of possibilities.
Adding tags to physical world instead of only in the Web is interesting. Physical places could be valuated: Getting good service or alternatively stomach disease in some restaurant.
The impact
Interest groups and friends are closer to you when you and they are mobile. People can engage in joint tasks with the mobile community in ways not possible with stationary communities.
Mobile user-generated content can bring a new kind of warmth and deepness to familiar things. If a restaurant review comes from someone having a particular relationship with you – be it a friend of yours providing a review of a new restaurant in your home town, or your fellow countryman providing a review of a popular tourist restaurant in a foreign city it probably feels different than reading a review written by a professional restaurant critic.
Added value for mobile user-generated content is easy to imagine for a tourist who does not know the surroundings. Practical information created by other people who have visited the same area depending on the need either other tourists or locals would be of use as an alternative to “official information”, provided for example by local travel agencies. The same model could work for buying a microwave: Access to user-generated information about microwaves in an electronic store, as opposed to the information provided by the manufacturer or the seller, would assist the buyer (kinda like book reviews on Amazon but in a physical world).
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=1a33a30d-6457-44d5-9d15-f1e1b07262c4)
RSS Feed
