Search Is About Location
Google’s location strategy seems to be two-fold – the first is based around search and listings, with economic models built into the way people list themselves on Google Maps, and can buy tags and track search trends using Google Analytics.
Google Places
“One out of every five searches is location related, but local search still represents a relatively small portion of Google’s revenues. Google wants local businesses to claim ther Places pages (4 million have already done so), update them and buy local search advertising.
For $25 a month, local businesses can buy “tags” which will turn up their listings in local searches, including on Google maps. They can print out custom QR codes (2D barcodes) which are readable by cell phones with cameras and QR readers and will pop up a mobile version of their Google Place page or a mobile coupon.”
Source <http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/20/google-places/>
Social Is About Location
Facebook is obviously the poster child of Social Networks, and Facebook’s location services were launched earlier this year, with ability to check into places, and also check in your friends.
FACEBOOK PLACES
- At the moment, brands can claim Places pages because they operate in a similar way to normal Facebook pages.
- Brands can adopt a Place, which would then be merged with a business’s Facebook page, updated with a new design. Once merged, the page will include Places information, such as maps, and show people who have recently checked in. Core content like photos, videos and events will also remain.
- Because they work in the same way as pages, Places pages carry ads. These are targeted at users based on likes, interests and demographic information, so at present brands can’t advertise around particular Places, but can instead select user interests to target the ads on that may enable them to target certain pages. For example, you can’t target ads around local Starbucks branches but could target Londoners who have said they ‘like’ coffee.
- Facebook said, like the mobile apps and products, Places was created based on user behaviour and as such commercialisation of the service is something it’s looking into but doesn’t yet have solid plans for.
Source <http://www.nma.co.uk/news/facebook-places-what-you-need-to-know/3018341.article>
“In the UK, Facebook has 26m active users and 10m of them only access it though their mobiles. There are no barriers to adoption because users don’t have to get their heads around being a ’mayor’ like on Foursquare, for example,” he said.
Source <http://www.nma.co.uk/news/facebook-places-launches-in-the-uk/3018328.article>
Of course, other social networking giants such as Twitter have also launched location disclosure to add “context” to tweets. Not to mention niche location providers such as Foursquare and Gowalla are integrating with Facebook and Twitter as they seek to land-grab in the location services game.
http://blog.twitter.com/2010/06/twitter-places-more-context-for-your.html
And Google’s second arm of it’s location strategy includes Latitude which is the tool that like Facebook, allows users (friends) to find each other on a map or at a venue.
Advertising Is About Location
Advertisers are always in search of the holy grail of context and personalization. The Location axis is one way in which to achieve this. And with the recent explosion of smart phones, location based services have found a large and growing market.
Local newspaper sites must find more innovative ways of engaging with communities and embrace social media developments, such as location services, to maintain sustainable business models, according to industry experts.
Last week’s ABCE regionals report showed growth in the number of average daily unique browsers during January to June for the majority of regional publishers, with Glasgow Herald and Oxford Mail publisher Newsquest reporting the largest, up 21.7% year on year to 286,252.
Trinity Mirror Regional Network saw a 12.6% increase to 304,290 average daily unique browsers, Northcliffe Media’s were up 10.6% to 275,643, Midlands News Association increased its by 8.7% to 40,398, while Johnston Press’s average daily browsers were up 3.1% to 400,612.
Source <http://www.nma.co.uk/news/local-papers-must-embrace-social-media-to-survive/3017725.article>
Location is About… well, Location!
For businesses already critically dependent on Location now have a whole new set of tools with which they can be found, accessed, and through which they can conduct business.
Rightmove has launched a mobile website with GPS functionality to target home hunters while on the move.
The site is tailored for smartphones and lets users search for properties based on their location using the phone’s GPS.
The launch follows the success of its iPhone app, developed by mobile agency 2ergo, which has been downloaded 800,000 times.
Source <http://www.nma.co.uk/news/rightmove-launches-mobile-site-after-app-success/3018016.article>
And here are some interesting Companies playing in the Location Services area:
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/rummble
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/akaaki
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/gowalla
Needless to say, underlying all this location based information is geo-spatial data – maps and surveys. Google’s core asset is it’s Google maps around which a number of other services are built. And the agency that does all the hard work in the UK to actually create the base geographic data, is the Ordnance Survey.
Convergence Conversation – Location Based Services
For the Convergence Conversation on the 30th of September, we have among others, Google and the Ordnance Survey, talking about Location based services. You can sign up here. Look forward to seeing you there.
Ved Sen
Pragna Sen
Karuna Kapoor
Annette Kramer, PhD
