The Futures & Trends of Location-Based Services (LBS)

Below are some insights from this week's Geo Loco Conference panelists. Di-Ann Eisnor from Waze, Michael Liebhold of Institute for the Future, Lior Ron of google, Robert Scoble from Rackspace and Liz Gannes from GigaOm discuss hte future of location-based services on a panel moderated by Dr. Phil Hendrix from IMMR.

Some of the things the panelists responded to were the geo-loco issues below:

While location is an integral feature of mobile apps, consumers will be reluctant to pay for any location-based services - they expect location to be a "free" value-added feature. However, where location is relevant, consumers will strongly prefer apps and content that are location-aware over those that are unaware. True or not?

Mobile devices capable of scanning or codes and barcodes will revolutionaize the way in which individuals obtain information, shop and generally experience places. As businesses rapidly embrace and deply the technology, scanning and retrieving information will be important.

Location-based servcies will be integrated with social networks, enabling users to share their real-time location with the appropriate people. For example, family members (spouse, kids, parents) will be able to view my loaton at any time, co-workers will know my location during work hours, friends in my inner network I connect with the most, will be alerted if I travel to their city.

Location will enable and foster better communications, stronger ties and interactions among individuals and their communities, i.e., neighborhoods (citizens, news sources, government, etc), local merchants, cities, hyperlocal news, etc. The equivalent of a 'local' world wide web will emerge.

RESPONSES from the Group:

Di-Ann Eisnor:

"We'll navigate more on time than place. Time will become more and more important."

"Static information that doesn't change will move away."

"Having people engage in a physical world, such as Twitter, allows me to have a peer-to-peer transaction, i.e., my bamboo for your lettuce, this kind of sharing of goods, and it's that kind of thing you'll see more and more as we're aware of who's around us."

"We need to make sure people know that they're sharing and when and where they share it."

"The problem is not the amount of information that is geo-location, its what is most relevant. It could be where I'm going but its going to be more interesting to look at the patterns that we follow."

Lior Ron:

"We need a search engine in a location. If we look at what is happening today, now we try to index what we see: photos, tweets, etc. There's too much information out there and there's an explosion of apps on the Android and the iPhone - how do I find those apps and use them? We need a search engine inside location."

"Let's look at objects nearby without any intervention of the business - this is much more scalable in nature. You need to combine object and image recognition together."

"How will we make money with geo-loco? We don't have a scalable model yet...to flow money into the market. If we look at what happened with the mashups, there was no scalable model. New companies who try to make a business out of map APIs were not really that successful."

Robert Scoble:

"By 2014, we're going to see a lot of the silos we have today start to stitch together in a way that will be useful in the real-world."

"All the value is in the tips. Friendfeed let you stream things out, that's one of the reasons I was so excited about it."

"Luckily our world is so siloed right now, that we have to go in the opposite direction. At one site you can see houses for sale and at another services, but none of them talk to each other and we can't integrate them -- a huge thing is missing."

Liz Gannes:

"I'm excited about real-world gaming. The badge mentality is dumb but there's a lot more that can be done there."

Re: location to be used to enable and foster better communication, stronger ties and interactions among individuals and their communities, "incentives here are aligned, there's no stalking involved. This is the best thing that can happen using geo-location services, rather than sharing your social networks, there's value here."

"There needs to be a reason to contribute your location; we need incentives in order to contribute something as consumers."

Michael Liebhold:

"Resolution and alignment are not good enough yet, but it might be good enough by 2020."

"Bar codes are spam. The Big Yellow Arrow project didn't work - we don't want to flood the environment with bar codes; visual search is more promising and revolutionary."

"I'm willing to make a prediction: there's going to be some stalking and violence using geo-location services and the politicians are going to legislate something we can't imagine yet. Image and facial recognition is one of the most dangerous of these technologies, because you can't opt out of these services."

"I got filled up to here with people checking in - it's noise that isn't of value. It's the mafia wars of Farmville and the number one reason I unfollow friends & family."

"As augmented reality proliferates, video games are going to jump out of the console and into the real world."