Mobile Location-Based Services on the Move

• Posted: Friday, October 10, 2008
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• Author: pradhana
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• Filed under: Mobile Services

The pin marks your spot.

Consumer mobile location-based services first became available two to three years ago as the performance and cost of mobile handsets—especially smartphones—made it feasible to launch mobile information services that used location data. The iPhone, and all the clones that sprang up after its introduction, accelerated adoption.

eMarketer estimates there will be over 63 million location-based service users worldwide this year, and 486 million in 2012.

“Consumers have discovered that the appeal of location-based services extends beyond pinpointing locations, businesses and other points of interest,” says John du Pre Gauntt, senior analyst at eMarketer and author of the new report, Mobile Location-Based Services. “Buddy beacons and friend finders based on location-based service technology allow mobile users to determine each other’s physical location.”

Not surprisingly, marketers, too, are interested in mobile location-based services.
“Connecting with consumers at the last three feet of a transaction is the holy grail for advertisers,” says Mr. Gauntt.

In February 2008, CBS teamed up with Loopt, a social mapping service, to offer location-based service-based advertising. CBS ran localized banners on CBS Mobile News and CBS Mobile Sports to point Loopt customers to local businesses based on their physical location.

In September, Quattro Wireless partnered with uLocate to offer location-based advertising inventory exclusive to the iPhone. uLocate’s application, WHERE, is already one of the most-popular downloads at Apple’s iPhone App Store.

“Things are moving fast, but there are some significant hurdles for marketers trying to make location-based services a standard part of the mobile marketing mix,” says Mr. Gauntt. “An obvious challenge is to address both the real and imagined privacy concerns.”

Read more - eMarketer

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