Location Based Services: Locating the Money

Abstract

Location based services (LBS) are considered by some to be the ‘golden child” of wireless data services and one of the few areas where users would be willing to pay a premium for usage. Mobile Operators however are yet to be convinced, and despite acknowledging location services as strategic, have not considered it a priority. Recent LBS deployments however focusing on a holistic view of user behaviour are showing positive signs of success. These deployments focus on providing services that integrate different content from multiple sources to provide users with a coherent and logically connected flow of application options. These applications are called “Find it, Route it, Share it & Buy it. Importantly this model maximises return on investment (ROI) by motivating user to undertake multiple transactions. The challenge for those within the LBS industry is to convince mobile operators that LBS is viable and can deliver a strong ROI. Indeed, the future success of LBS is as much dependant on locating the money as it is about locating the subscribers.