Geo tagging leaders and marketing

The Future of Geo-tagged Marketing, Now

The Location Equation: How a New Breed of Services Like Foursquare, SimpleGeo Are Changing Mobile

Posted by Garrick Schmitt on 12.14.09 @ 10:37 AM

 

Just a few short years ago, if you had asked most marketers about the future of mobile, their nirvana most likely would have been a consumer strolling down the aisle of her local grocery store receiving text messages offering 50 cents off a bottle of ketchup or jar of peanut butter.

But not so much today, as industry heavyweights and upstarts like Google, Facebook, Twitter and SimpleGeo are racing to map out a digital, geo-tagged future where our physical and virtual worlds will increasingly collide. Soon a simple coupon delivered via SMS or Bluetooth will seem like an idea from a different era, like Pong or the Hula Hoop.

Everyone, it seems, is looking to take advantage of the demand for location-based services created by GPS-enabled devices, such asApple's iPhone and Google's Android 2.0. Even desktop operating systems, such as Windows 7 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard will soon contain location-awareness features -- so too will browsers, as we've seen with the latest Firefox releases.

Foursquare

Now come the services. Just this week, Google launched What's Nearby, a location-based search that's part of Google Maps on Android and will soon be more widely available. The service allows consumers to simply access a list of the ten closest places of interest near their physical location via their mobiles.

And that's just to start: Google Latitude allows users to share their locations with friends and view their friends activities on a map; Facebook has rewritten its privacy policy, foreshadowing its entrance into location-based services; and Twitter has rolled out itsGeotagging API, which will allow popular Twitter apps like Tweetie and Tweetdeck to display the location from where a tweet was posted.

But geo-location APIs and GPS-enabled mobile devices are just part of the "location equation." Here's a look at the most promising geo players who are making location-based marketing a reality for brands today.

FOURSQUARE AND GOWALLA: Foursquare and Gowalla are the two most buzzed-about leaders in location-based services. Both companies provide game-like experiences for their users that allow them to "check-in" at various locales (bars, restaurants, etc.). But it's Foursquare that has recently made the first play for advertisers. The company recently debuted its Foursquare for Businessprogram, which enables retailers to provide offers to their users and track the success of location-based campaigns. Industry analysts are understandably enthused.

YELP: Yelp is another major player in the location-based advertising category. The company has made a graceful leap from the desktop to the hip pocket with an iPhone app that offers suggestions -- and, more tellingly, special sales and offers -- to users, based on GPS coordinates. Going one step further, the company recently launched its augmented-reality application for the iPhone, dubbed "Monocle," which allows users to look through the phone's camera to see an overlay of local business information for wherever they may be standing.

STARBUCKS: Starbucks is proving that brands too can enter the location-based services fray. The company's myStarbucks iPhone application allows one to broadcast which Starbucks location he or she is at via Facebook or Twitter. Couple that with a store locator that allows users to choose a location based on wifi availability, hot food items and more, and Starbucks has a potent offering for a mobile consumer base. It's not hard to imagine a near future where Starbucks will soon react to user volume and location data by pushing offers to caffeine-craving consumers to encourage rapid coffee consumption at off-peak hours.

Yowza

YOWZA: Yowza is one of the more interesting upstarts in location-based advertising. Users who download the Yowza app to their iPhones are able to have deals and coupons pushed to them based on their immediate location. Yowza is paperless too -- simply let the cashier scan your phone to receive a discount. With big-name retailers like REI, Crate & Barrel, Guitar Center and CB2 on board, Yowza has the potential to completely upend the Sunday circular.

YIPIT: Though still in its infancy, Foursquare has opened up its API to create a burgeoning -- if still fledgling -- location-based ecosystem. Yipit is one of the most interesting service providers for marketers. The startup scours sample sales, restaurant deals, newspapers and much more to surface nearby sales and deals to users based on their Foursquare "check-ins," and it predicts which offers users are most interested in based on their profile preferences. It's NY only, for now.

SIMPLEGEO: As location-based services take off, a host of new companies like GeoApi, Geodelic, and, most promisingly,SimpleGeo are offering geo services to make application development for publishers and brands much simpler. SimpleGeo offers hosted services like a Context Engine that allows developers to access geo-tagged content from the likes of Twitter, Flickr, Brightkite and more; storage for location data; and even an SDKs so you can get augmented reality up and running, fast.

Of course, location-based services won't be all smooth sailing. It's still early days for geolocation, and privacy issues will certainly come to the fore sooner rather than later. But forward-thinking brands would do well to take note. It won't be much longer until digital experiences -- whether mobile or desktop-based -- start reacting to users based on their coordinates. The co-mingling of social media and physical location information is potent stuff, as Foursquare has proven. And just think, Facebook hasn't even officially entered the arena, yet.

The platform is broadband. And that’s everywhere

Battle of quality instead of quantity

By Joseph Menn in San Francisco

Published: December 22 2009 20:02 | Last updated: December 22 2009 20:02

Name an internet-connected device, and as the Apple commercial would say, there’s an App store for it.

Nokia, Research in Motion’s BlackBerry, Palm, Microsoft, and the surging number of gadgets running Google’s Android operating system all provide access to online retail centres where people can browse programs to buy and install on their phones.

Apple’s success with the iPhone and the 100,000 applications that now run on it has helped it reached a market value equal to Google’s. Some of its competitors’ attempts to mimic Apple’s achievement can appear unimpressive by contrast.

Yet Android, in spite of appearing only a little more than a year ago, now offers 20,000 apps, double the number available just five months ago. The sheer number of apps now on offer means the contest between phone platforms is now focused on quality, not quantity.

More fundamentally, the apps boom on Android shows that the historic technology shift now under way will have more than one winner. Even those who have tied their fortunes to the iPhone, such as program developers, say that the surging “app economy” is much bigger than one family of products offered by one company.

Gus Tai of Trinity Ventures, a venture capital firm which has significant investments in companies making iPhone apps, says: “Android is definitely going to be a force to be reckoned with”.

Now other hand-held devices can connect to the internet in a usable way, the iPhone is losing some of its competitive advantage. In addition, developers point out that it is not difficult to tweak a program made for the iPhone to run well on another gadget.

David Yoffie, a Harvard Business School professor says: “Most previous application environments had fairly significant switching costs”.

“From Apple to Unix or Windows, it was very costly for a firm to make the move. But the cost for moving an app from Apple to Android is $5,000 or less for a typical company. It’s actually very inexpensive.”

Prof Yoffie says that he expects several smartphone platforms to survive, with the top apps available on each.While Apple has the lead in sheer number of applications and in unit sales of the most high-functioning phones, it will be a serious challenge to retain it in the long term.

Gartner technology consultancy predicted in October that Android phones, now supported by the four US wireless carriers with the greatest number of customers, would overtake Apple in unit sales by 2012 and rank second in smartphone share only to Nokia.

The significant factors in Android’s favour are the system’s support from web behemoth Google and the fact that it is open-source, so that anyone can modify it for distribution.

That said, the app market on Android has had some hiccups. For now, sales can be made only through Google Checkout, a virtual payment platform that has not been as widely adopted as rivals such as PayPal and is not available in all countries. Developers complain that consumers have a hard time finding out about their wares.

Programmers have another worry, which is that Android runs on a range of hardware. They can tailor a game to work best on one sort of Android phone, but it will function differently when it is used on another sort of phone or even on an Android laptop.

However, the number of apps installed per Android handset owner is rising, and there are other signs that the platform is strengthening. Google’s David Conway, senior product manager for Android, says: “Since the beginning of the fourth quarter, if you’re talking about paid apps, we’ve seen a tripling of transaction volume and revenues”.

Most of the best-selling apps on the iPhone and Android phones are games, but business software is also being distributed, and corporate technology departments are agreeing to support more of the devices.

The good news for Android and other iPhone competitors is that so much computing activity is moving towards the “cloud”, where data are stored remotely and can be accessed from phones or computers anywhere. By design, programs that handle such data already work well with multiple devices. That means the iPhone will not be able to control exclusively processing requests to access the programs and data.

Those who have the most money at stake, such as investors and entrepreneurs, are convinced that no single company, nor even one sort of hardware, will dominate the market. They say the big winners in software will be those that prove the most flexible, allowing different experiences from varying devices.

Mr Tai, referring to a series of electronic games based on American football that demands a great deal of processing power, says: “It’s not whether Madden will go on your phone.

“It’s what parts of it could be hived off.”

Lars Buttler, a former head of the online division at Electronic Artsvideogaming company, makes games that reside on the cloud at his company Trion World Network.

He says that players of Trion games would, for example, give simple orders to characters from their BlackBerry while the action takes place on servers elsewhere.

He says: “We refuse to see the console or the PC or the iPod as a platform. It’s an access device.

“The platform is broadband. And that’s everywhere.”

Apple has what many see as the best gadget and for now the broadest array of things to do with those gadgets. But the former is a matter of degree and the latter is more about bragging rights than superior utility. In a world where access to the web is what matters most, Apple cannot expect to rule alone.

Paramount license clips online

Paramount Begins Licensing Clips Online, With Help from Digitalsmiths

ParamountClips.com

What do you do when your DVD business starts to show serious signs of decline? If you’re Paramount, you look for ways to create a new revenue stream from your existing catalog of video content. With that in mind, the movie studio today launchedParamountClips.com, a warehouse of short-form video assets created and indexed with the help of Digitalsmiths.

The site will enable users to license clips from Paramount titles such as The Godfather, Forrest Gump and Top Gun, all without reaching out to the studio to do so. The site will have clips from 80 different titles in the Paramount catalog at launch, according to theNY Times, but the studio is looking to quickly expand that by an additional 200 titles, with the ultimate goal being to index and make available short-form videos from about 1,000 films, or one-third of its film library.

For now clips are available only to certain business partners — like ad agencies or foreign broadcasters — that want to be able to license and repurpose them for their own videos. But the clip portal could at some point be opened to consumers who want to be able to search and embed certain scenes on their own web sites.

The whole thing is being made possible by Digitalsmiths, which is providing the backend technology for indexing, managing and distributing the clips. Using various proprietary video interpretation technologies from Digitalsmiths such as facial recognition, scene classification and closed-captioned time alignment, Paramount is able to easily create clips with rich metadata attached. Users can then search those clips based on a number of elements, including specific actors, locations, or pieces of dialogue.

Transmedia explained

we get a lot of people asking what transmedia is, its really simple, its all about storytelling, see this short video

centraltrains hav just charged me 4 a 2nd ticket,after i lost it in the rush through the barrier.no compasion threatened with police,and pay 70quid!

Rage against the machine is xmas no1 knocks out xfactor joe, what an apt winner 4 the power of social networks and facebook!

dover ferry chaos 10miles of trucks waiting to cross the channel 2 france, driving past it after cop15 going 2 take days 2 clear.

Im on the last bus out of brussels 4 xmas! And a 48hr backlog 4 ferry/trains across the channel. This is going to b intreastin

eurolines belgium arrived early, horrific conditions! We salute u, lets hope 4 a safe passage 2 ldn.

eurostar cancelled sunday,all eurolines bus full, flights canceled.uk locked down. We cant handle climatechange cop15

eurostar say i can claim resonable expenses 4 canceling everytrain, do they know belgium has the best beer in da world.

cop15 reclaimpower copenhagen failed us,time 4 the people of the world 2 b the solution, get involved, direct action!

slowtravel cop15 db bahn to kole broken down in hanover! Had to giv up my bed and 4hr delay,but high spirits from all.

cop15 futureartists stuck on a broken train! Cop 2 brussels, going to b 16hrs! trains

Peoples assembly in Copenhagen mass walkouts

fbl cop15 sound swarm,stopped and searched,taking alter route to bella.

cop15 g15 reclaimthepower bikebloc live updates from the peoples revolution c-day. By asha

bikebloc cop15 copenhagen cops raid bike bloc candy factory hq, now!

cop15 bbc cop cops teargas and water cannon christiana area, casultys?

cop15 bikebloc bbc cop cops surround christiana no one in or out. Full metal jacket beware

bikebloc cop15 amazing buzz at the candy factory as final prep is done!

Future artists believe in creating facts from the ground,not in ideologys conjured up by marketing men to boost the market or hook the investor,for we are the community already investing in our space,ourselve,each other and our future.

cop15 bikebloc slowtravel last train journy b4 copenhagen,just left hamburg.ready to act 4 change

Interview with Diary of a bad lad producer Jon Williams

Exclusive interview with North west new wave guru Jon Williams at Salford film festival.

 

cop15 in hamburg,squat party last nite,and now sight seeing with canadian rob

Road to cop15 climatecamp continues, amsterdam to hamburg by train nxt.any hostels in hamburg?

g15 in rotterdam 4 breakfast, where should i go, on route to climatecamp in copenhagen

cop15 bikebloc g15 its better to travel well than to arrive (buddha)

g15 climatecamp bikebloc im lookin fwd to paying off the ecological and economical debt of the uk

futureartists wil be traveling 2 copenhagen by slow travel, 2moz and will be reporting via social networks, re-tweet u like g15

The road to the G15 part one

Just getting my bag ready, sorting the film gear, and sorting out my social networks so i can communicate back the cross platform film, we are making with future artists, and came across this article that may be intreast to people.

Climate protesters descend on Copenhagen

By George Webster

December 8, 2009 10:24 a.m. EST

People participating in a 'flashmob' ahead of the U.N.climate change conference in Copenhagen.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Largest-ever gathering of climate protesters to assemble in Copenhagen
• More than 50,000 expected, although they will not have access to venue
• Climate Justice Action coordinating attempt to hijack the event

RELATED TOPICS

• Global Climate Change
• Environmental Protection
• Alternative Energy Technology

(CNN) -- The largest-ever gathering of climate protesters will assemble in Copenhagen this week for the long-awaited COP15 summit, raising the prospect of clashes with authorities as they attempt to highlight their concerns to world leaders.

With up to 50,000 protesters expected to arrive over the 11-day conference, their activities are likely to be as much of a focus as the discussions on climate change taking place within the heavily-guarded venue.

Despite having no access to the venue, activists have pledged to "overcome physical barriers" to deliver their message to delegates who include United States President Barack Obama and China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

While representing a colorful array of perspectives, most of the protesters share a belief that the talks will fail to create adequate proposals for reducing global carbon emissions in time to prevent irreversible climate change.

Campaigners are to appear in all shapes and sizes. From the UK anti-aviation industry group Plane Stupid, to the Indian Social Action Forum collective opposed to genetically modified crops to Brazilian land reform campaigners, the Landless Workers' Movement.

Are you at the COP15 summit?

Particular concerns range from the influence of corporate lobbyists in framing climate policy, the reliability of market-based solutions such as carbon trading, and the fairness of new measures on those worst affected by climate change in the developing world.

Lizzie Jacobs, of UK-based activist network Climate Camp, told CNN her group would be in Copenhagen to highlight the failure of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol agreement on emissions reduction.

"This is an undemocratic, Western-centric process that has consistently failed to meet its already insufficient targets, and has actually led to increased emissions. We're traveling to Denmark because we don't have faith in this process and we want to highlight the alternatives."

What is at stake at Copenhagen?

Beginning Friday there will be a week-long series of coordinated actions sprouting up across Copenhagen.

Video: 'This is our chance'

Video: Climate change conference opens

These will range from eye-catching spectacles like the "Bike Bloc," where activists will build a mammoth "resistance machine" made from recycled bicycles; to the "Flood for Climate Justice" mass rally on December 12 devised by environmental group Friends of the Earth to emphasize the so-called "climate debt" owed to the southern hemisphere by the polluting north.

A vast and influential network known as Climate Justice Action (CJA) are also coordinating what is probably the most hotly-anticipated action of the week.

Set to coincide with the arrival of world leaders on December 16, the action -- provocatively titled 'Reclaim Power' -- will be an attempt by activists to hijack the conference for one day and transform it into a "People's Assembly."

"The intention of the Reclaim Power day," says British-based climate activist Robert Tyler, "is to enter the conference and put our agenda on the table. This is an agenda that recognizes indigenous land rights, that recognizes the damage done by our economic system to countries around the world."

It is not clear how CJA members could succeed in breaking through the highest levels of security.

While the U.N. has specifically requested that protesters be allowed near the heavily-guarded 15,000-capacity venue, demonstrations will, say Danish police, be halted at least 300 meters away.

"History has shown us that when there is a need for radical social change, asking those in power nicely to relinquish some control doesn't get us very far.  --British activist Dan Glass

Although this raises the prospect of violent confrontations, the CJA maintains it is committed to "non-violent civil disobedience."

A statement on the network's Web site reads: "We will overcome any physical barriers that stand in our way -- but we will not respond with violence if the police try to escalate the situation, nor create unsafe situations."

Dan Glass, an activist who made headlines in 2008 after gluing himself to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told CNN the risks of injury and of breaking the law -- such as those witnessed during the WTO Seattle protests 10 years ago -- are justified under certain conditions.

"History has shown us that when there is a need for radical social change, asking those in power nicely to relinquish some control doesn't get us very far. Women wouldn't be voting in Britain without the suffragettes and Mandela would still be in jail if it wasn't for direct action against apartheid."

However, for those seeking a less combative Copenhagen experience, there is an alternative summit that runs parallel to the executive one. Situated in the city center and financed by the Danish government at an estimated cost of 1 million krona ($200,000) Klimaforum09 is billed as "the global civil society counterpart to the U.N. conference."

Forum spokesman Richard Steed informs CNN that he expects around 10,000 visitors a day.

As well as an elaborate cast of international speakers, including anti-globalization activist Naomi Klein and the radical Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva, Steed says that the Klimaforum will provide an opportunity for open debate and discussion among all participants.

"The grassroots activism in Copenhagen will not just be about opposition, it will be about forming new connections and finding solutions. From ways to keep fossil fuels in the ground, to ways of repaying our ecological debt to the peoples of the South -- if the Copenhagen summit achieves nothing else it will be a resurgence of new ideas."