Features
Location Based Services
Small insights into the Big Picture
By George Filley
Industry experts continue to grapple for reasons why the
Location Based Services market hasn't lived up to early predictions.
Were those initial expectations simply wildly optimistic? Are
concerns over privacy issues chilling the drive toward deployment?
Is the value chain too fragmented and limiting? Is the lack of
standards slowing things down? Are consumers merely not interested?
The
answer to the first four questions is maybe, maybe, maybe, and
maybe. But the answer to the only question that counts÷are consumers
merely not interested?÷ is a resounding no.
Of
course consumers care about location. People have an inherent
desire to explore and are always interested in knowing where they
are, and where and how to get to the people, places and things
that are important to them with as little fuss as possible. We
don't need studies to tell us this. We have 6,000 years of history
to tell us this. Tap into this fundamental truth of the human
condition, make it commercially viable, and the sky's the limit.
Commercial
Viability:
Therein Lies the Rub
Alas, therein lies the challenge: how do you make Location Based
Services commercially viable? What approach is the best given
the fluidity of underlying technology, feared fallout over privacy
issues, uncertainty about business models and value chains and
standards?
The
truth is, innovation that consumers find truly compelling can
happen in unexpected and discontinuous ways. As much planning
as often goes into product development, the nature and scale of
success in blockbuster consumer products tends to surprise just
about everyone, including their creators. When the telephone was
first invented, an industry pioneer predicted that ãone day there
would be a telephone in every major town in America.ä The fact
that the guy who said it happened to be Alexander Graham Bell
should tell you that anybody can miss the big picture.
When
it comes to innovation, success is at least as indebted to tenacity,
verve, and genuine artistic creativity as it is to sound business
planning.
The
Next Big Thing·is Upon Us
Garmin was early out of the gate, taking swings with notable success
and enjoying the wide popularity of its Street Pilot portable
navigation product suite. Today, there's a growing array of products
and pilot programs that other companies are bringing to market
as well as media-based and wireless products. Many believe that
it is in these wireless and/or server based solutions where we
will find the true mass market opportunity.
Driven
by the E911 mandate and the subsequent proliferation of cell phones
with embedded GPS, carriers are embracing the potential of location-relevant
services. Nextel as an example is already driving this solution
with an out of the box experience with Televigation's TeleNav
navigation solution on a number of its new handsets. A large number
of new cell phones now include integrated GPS, but Nextel is the
first that puts that capability to good commercial use. A user
simply tells the cell phone where she wants to go. GPS gets a
fix on her position and directions are downloaded to the phone
on how to reach that destination (with turn by turn voice instructions).
Nextel showed grit in its decision to go after the early adopter
market. Other carriers are following suit with pilot programs
already underway or scheduled to get underway in 2005. Carriers
that complied with E911 by embedding GPS chips on their handsets
have a technological leg up on the carriers that have not and
instead opted for satisfying the mandate with less-precise network-based
positioning. Regardless of how wireless carriers elected to fulfill
the E911 mandate, however, the key to cracking the LBS market
lies with them. They're the true gatekeepers of what makes its
way onto to the handset and the market÷and what doesn't.
The
Real Litmus Test:
Usability and Usefulness
For developers and wanna-be developers of wireless applications
courting these tough customers, the real test is to what degree
the proposed offering is both easy to use and genuinely useful.
Wireless carriers, not to mention consumers, will surely snub
applications that are as perplexing to use as VCRs were once tough
to program. The limitations inherent in a handset's small keypad,
and the limited patience of cell phone users on the run, won't
abide any program that is not intuitively easy to use.
Along
with the need to be a natural extension to how a cell phone is
used, any product offering must also be a natural enhancement
to the lifestyle of the user. Successful applications will have
to offer much more than a broad-based bombardment of intrusive
spam-like alerts telling a user he's steps away from his next
cafŽ latte. To be truly meaningful, location-based services and
users must understand each other. The user must be able to define
the parameters of any given offering and the offering must anticipate
requirements that are not only common to the general population,
like emergency services, but customizable to the unique needs
of the guy using the service.
There
are a number of other compelling wireless location solutions that
run the gamut from basic map viewing to navigation to the ability
to track groups of assets or people. To what degree one or all
of them will break out as a commercial blockbuster is now up to
the consumer and will likely surprise no one as much as the creators
themselves.
George
Filley is Vice President and General Manager, North American Internet
& Wireless Business Unit of NAVTEQ
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