Saturday, January 28, 2012

Locations Aware Service

One of my moments of truth happened at the Web 2.0 Forum in San Francisco a few years ago. During her keynote speech, Mitchell Baker, Chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation planted an idea that would forever change my perspective on mobile technologies: it is not the device that is mobile, it is the individual. This simple statement was my "there is no spoon" revelation from The Matrix. The realization that there is an unexplored world of possibilities around mobility.


Add machine to machine (M2M) to the mix and we are looking at the evolution from Location Based Services to something that could be dubbed Location Aware Services. The subtle difference meaning these are technologies cooperating to offer functionality once they become aware of the user's location (rather than simply offering information).

Imagine a home that knows you have arrived, either because you have turned off the alarm system, or because your phone GPS indicates you are home, your mobile Bluetooth is now in range, you have checked into Foursquare, or whichever many more options will allow services to locate you. Now your favorite Rdio playlist can be queued to your home entertainment system, your oven can start heating up to roast that chicken you left de-freezing, your tub may fill up for a bath -at the perfect temperature, of course- and your entire home technologies will be working together to delight you.

The possibilities are endless. From fridges and pantries emailing you shopping lists when you are at the supermarket, to your house automatically going into 'vacation mode' when you land in China, location awareness and cloud based services can revolutionize the world we live in.

Getting there may be a long and complex road, particularly because very few companies are thinking about this grand vision of making everything work for you based on where you are. First, companies must understand the principle of two-way location awareness. This means that your location is relevant in at least two ways; where you are determines what services are available to you, but also what information is important for you to receive.

Second is business models. What financial rationale can you attribute to the proliferation of Location Aware Services other than competitive advantages and value add for the consumer? How do companies that empower these services stand to benefit ones the perceived added value becomes ubiquitous?

Hopefully Silicon Valley financials will prevail, allowing companies to innovate for the sake of better technologies rather than profit. In the meantime, we hope to incorporate these ideas to everything we do.

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