My Summary – great panel, good discussion and no one has really figured it out. Location is just part of the “context” it is the anchor! Useful comment on Augmented Reality at the end.
This panel maps the mobile revenue landscape by bringing differing viewpoints from entrepreneurs who have monetized their apps
Panelists:
- Greg Sterling Analyst, Sterling Market Intelligence/Opus Research
Sanjeev Agrawal CEO, Aloqa
Ted Morgan CEO and Founder, Skyhook Wireless a location tech co provide location on all iphones etc. We think location is “context”
Balaji Natarajan Senior Manager, Mobile Technologies, Capgemini
Tasso Roumeliotis CEO and Founder, WaveMarket we do location aggregation
Rahul Sonnad CEO and Founder, Geodelic Systems create a system for local discovery. App on Android.
Sanjay Vakil Founder, LuckyCal looks at calendar in terms of where you are going to be.
These are my notes:
What is context? What is the relationship with location? Context makes phones smarter including signal of people around you. So discovering Starbucks when away was important. How can I know my friends in the room. What’s your day in the life? Context is a filter and location enable quick physical filtering. Location is one piece of context – how important is location vis all the other context eg temperature. Location is an anchor for context. The rest will take much longer to become powerful.
What % of apps use location. 4000 apps across all major smartphones is location. A year and a half ago there were probably only five. How often are people using them. For our co serve up 200m requests per day. The uptake on this is phenomenal and people are using it 5 to 6 times per day. All apps for mobile phones need to become context aware.
The old fantasy was here’s the beam me by coupon. What’s the fantasy for contextual advertising around the mobile device? With location can overlay zoning data to focus ads to people that say are wanting to get lunch. Eg location is just part of the context. Location starts with engagement. When an app engages you throughout the day then it become really relevant. That app must engage you often enough. Eg start with the movie and then give me the opportunities. What will be the monetizable events? Also need to be able to locate 70 to 80% of phones. Is about getting access to the majority… No everyone agrees. You must generate a product that really generates ROI. Watch the experimental emerging market. Many new scenarios will emerge. Consider also the enterprise mode… eg when i tell my calendar where I’m going it can help arrange me meetings people, connections, opportunities where I don’t have to make decisions necessarily in real-time. Getting the same deal when I need it… when I am looking for a shoe… getting the info to a person at the right time. Is there a disconnect or a connection between doing desktop research and being in a store.
In a search model the consumer asks for information. Mobile is different. Foursquare is an interesting app when people check in. Search provides a huge amount of information – context makes even more valuable. Is the phone an interrupt device. The anti-twitter.. push increases engagement. Being presented with them give you the opportunity to interact. Have to deal with the privacy issues if you go in this direction. There is a disconnect between attitudes and behavior. Eg people will click through and yet people don’t want ads on iPhone.
Will AR augmented reality be successful? It is just a view … give me a compass focused view. What people want is not the map view through on your view screen. Huge opportunities for placing them in the digital world. The delay rate currently makes people sick! Engaging someone with the right content is fine by the random Starbucks coupon delivered mobile will never make sense.
