WCA LBS Event
This event held at Parc in Palo Alto was about what’s next in Location Based Services. The style of the event was similar to how Demo is run. Presenters get a tight timeframe to present the company and their product/service. Afterwards a rapid fire question and answer session ensues. It’s grueling, but for those who suffer from tech ADHD, you get the core highlights.
One of the more interesting services that was shown was GeoSpot. Joe Chen, Founder at GeoSpot talked about how location information for brick and mortar places such as coffee shops, banks, restaurants and stores were one level of information that people seek. The problem beyond this is knowing if that merchant is open or closed. This is adding in a time and local surfing filter. What this means is getting the store hours and detailed features of a store. As shown by the pictures (from GeoSpot), you not only get info about a Starbucks near you, but also the hours of operation, services such as WiFi access and whether or not they have a drive-through. These little incremental improvements over an address or point of interest in a map can help decision making easier.
I tried to compare this with Yelp on my iPhone and while it has improved some of the details about their database of listings, I think the color-coded dashboard is a better UI (Geospot) than simply putting hours of operation (Yelp).
The other interesting presentation was by Steve Lee, Product Manager for Google Maps for Mobile from Google. First off, this was one of the first presentation I have heard in a while from Google, where they actually talked about the technology as well as disclose information about their product offering and more. This was a welcome change! He first mentioned that the company is using cell tower based location and not relying on GPS. They have over 200+ carrier relationships and support 2G, 2.5G, 3G and CDMA networks. The list of phones currently supported:
- RIM Blackberry
- Windows Mobile
- Symbian
- SonyEricsson
- Apple iPhone
- Palm Centro
- Google Android
Google claims that they do not capture mobile phone numbers and that all data is anonymous, only obtaining aggregated cell tower location database information. Based on the current API that Google has access to, they can only get the CellID from the tower, instead of triangulation, thus the accuracy of Google Maps is somewhat lacking. This will improve however through higher subscriber usage. He admitted that in some places the accuracy is potentially off by many meters, but over time will get better.
I have first-hand seen this on my iPhone as I have tried it several times either lagging behind my actual location, or when I turn, charting my position off the path of travel and then correcting after a few seconds. There are a few cell sites that I regularly pass by that have the noticable lag of location update.
All in all this was a great event and I hope that I can attend future WCA (Wireless Communications Alliance) events.
SMX Expo: Ranking Tactics for Mobile Search (syndicated)
This session gave a bunch of tips about how to start optimizing your site and pages to be processed through a mobile search engine. A few simple steps can go a long way.
Cindy Krum, from Blue Moon Works, gave a good backgrounder about how mobile search is the most targeted marketing to exist today. This is based on the follow information that can be obtained: Continue Reading →
SMX Expo: Blended Search in a Mobile World (syndicated)
Blended search for mobile is a very complex topic that involves looking for web results, local results, mobile content, and mobile services, not necessarily in that order. This panel tried to open the conversation about understand the different search types.
One trend the panel noted was that search on a mobile phone is becoming a necessity versus a recreational activity. This is proven by what people are looking for as well as the surge in growth for search queries performed on the mobile phone. Continue Reading →
SMX Expo: Mobile Advertising Opportunities & Tactics Panel (syndicated)
The second day of the SMX Expo began with a bang talking about Mobile Advertising. However after the night before with several attendees partying until the wee hours, the attendance was a bit lacking. Nevertheless, the show must go on.
The Mobile Search Advertising Panel started off with David Berkowitz, Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy at 360i. He talked about the big benefit of reach with mobile subscribers as the number of users at over 3B eclipses PC users, which are only at 1B. There is a shift when it comes to customer reach away from on-deck (carrier portals) to off-deck (Yahoo Go!, Yelp iPhone app, etc) where standard paid search can take place. Two examples of ad networks with paid search that are off-deck, he mentioned are Medio and Jumptap. Continue Reading →
SMX Expo: The Future of LoMo – Convergence is Upon Us Panel (syndicated)
This panel was to explore the convergence of local and mobile search (LoMo) and how wireless technologies, GPS, and broadband access allow for more real-time local mobile search.
Ted Morgan, Founder and CEO of Skyhook Wireless, said that local search is a killer app for mobile. Perry Evans, Founder and CEO of Local Matters said that its the one device that you carry into the physical world that is with you, as compared to your PC. Continue Reading →
SMX Expo: Monetizing Local & Mobile Panel (syndicated)
This panel had quite a few case studies to show how some people are having sucess with local mobile campaigns.
Dan Hobin, CEO of G5 Search Marketing, whom I interviewed earlier in the day with their press release and mentioned the Self-Storage campaign with Facebook and forwarding the coupon/offer to their mobile phone. Continue Reading →
SMX Expo: The Local Mobile Search Landscape Panel (syndicated)
This panel talked about local mobile search opportunities and had a lot of statements which, I believe people in mobile search might question. In particular, Dan Miller from Opus Research had this to say:
Mobile Search is an extension of my desktop search and the desktop would be the control panel for mobile preferences. Continue Reading →
SMX Local and Mobile: Yahoo Knows Local (syndicated)
Frazier Miller, General Manager, Yahoo! Local gave the Keynote Address to open the Search Marketing Expo event focused on Local and Mobile in San Francisco today. He claims that Yahoo knows Local and Mobile. User queries for local search are increasing. The complexity of the local searches is shown by the length and number of terms are increasing. His example of finding “coffee san francisco” has changed to: “coffee organic fair trade glen park san francisco” He also notes Yahoo has seen a 76% Year over Year Growth in the quantity of Local Search.
SMX Expo SF Coverage
Today and tomorrow, I’ll be at the Search Marketing Expo: Local and Mobile. My posts can be found at: SMX Expo. I will be posting a summary and my thoughts here at the end of each day.
Twitterfeed Better?
For the last few weeks, I have been monitoring my blog to see how all the tools and plugins that I have setup are working. It seems that the plugin I was using, TwitterTools was simply not updating twitter. Also, it was having authentication problems just verifying my username and password.
I’m not sure if this coincides with the upgrade of WordPress 2.6 or with technical issues plaguing twitter, but I know that it has failed to keep up. So I have switched to twitterfeed.
LBS Update
Earlier tonight, I attended a seminar on LBS, setup by SVCWireless.
Moderator:
Breaux Walker, Partner, America’s Growth Capital
Panelists:
Glenn Chen, Partner, Woodside Capital Partners LLC
Kris Kolodziej, CTO, Spime Inc
Marc Prioleau, VP Marketing & Business Development, deCarta, Inc.
Dave Reid, Director, Business Development, Wireless Segment, SiRF Technology Inc.
It was a fairly good session with a lively panel covering a variety of topics.
What iPhone Applications Did You Install So Far?
OK, so I’ve only had the iPhone 3G for a few days and I admit, it’s completely different than the Blackberry or any Windows Mobile device. After I linked my iTunes account to my phone I was browsing the App Store and have downloaded the following applications (click on photo to enlarge):
What do you have installed? Let me know via your comments!
Go You Must, an iPhone You Get
Here are some pictures from July 11th, iPhone 3G day. I have to say that AT&T did a poor job at letting customers know what was going on. Even after the phones ran out at the store I was waiting at, it was definitely a poor Customer Service experience. Compared to the Apple Store, where I went to later that afternoon, the phones were in stock, the shopping experience was calm and efficient.
Apple iPhone 3G = Sliced Bread?
As the iPhone launched in Asia, then Europe, and finally the Americas, I wonder if people can go beyond the hype of the new Apple iPhone 3G. Like other heavily promoted things such as movie releases, video game launches and even other mobile devices, people really need to separate the wheat from the chaff. This amount of noise around the device needs to be somewhat grounded. In doing some of my own research as well as asking both current iPhone and Blackberry issues about how they *actually* use their phone, I feel that it grounds in reality how people use the phone versus how they think they use their phone. Continue Reading →
Mobile Time in a Box
Time in a Bottle was a hit song by Jim Croce in the 70′s. Maybe his inspiration came from atomic clocks instead of his newborn son? Not likely.
I recently had an interview with Symmetricom and the topic was about time. Mobile carriers heavily advertise minute plans to feed our hunger to talk on the mobile phone. But a dirty little secret that is cause for alarming is their approach for managing time. For the purposes on billing and logging all of those minutes that all of us consume each month, it’s critical that mobile operators get it right. It’s also of great concern to the subscriber as well.
Bluetooth Not Green
On the First of July, California law of requiring drivers to use a hands-free headset caused a lot of people to go out and buy a bluetooth headset for their mobile phone. Before the July 1st deadline, people were in a frenzy trying to decide which headset to buy. Most chose a bluetooth headset, after seeing various people they encounter appearing to speak to thin air, when it was really using a bluetooth headset on the non-visible ear.