Do humans really need location based services?
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The convergence of different devices is an ongoing trend and some companies predict that by 2010, 500 million mobile phones capable of navigation will be sold annually. With this in mind one should think that location-based services will be "the next big thing".
Even though I am confident that there will certainly be significant growth in some areas (i.e. vehicle tracking, in-car traffic information) I doubt that someday everyone will be using Google’s "Search nearby" feature to find the next ATM, restaurant or supermarket.
Even though mobility and travel has increased tremendously, the majority of people still roam in just a few locations and in general they do not move far from home. Vacations and business travel are exceptions - the percentage of time individuals spend in locations they don’t know is very small.
The New York Times reports on a study that shows that humans are creatures of habit and never go to far from home.
New research that makes creative use of sensitive location-tracking data from 100,000 cellphones in Europe suggests that most people can be found in one of just a few locations at any time, and that they do not generally go far from home.
“Individuals display significant regularity, because they return to a few highly frequented locations, such as home or work,” the researchers found.
That might seem like science and mountains of data being marshaled to prove the obvious. But the researchers say their work, which also shows that people exhibit similar patterns whether they travel long distances or short ones, could open new frontiers in fields like disease tracking and urban planning.
As I said before, I strongly believe that there will be a market for location based services. Nevertheless I think one has to shift focus from the technical possibilities that GPS-enabled, connected mobile devices potentially offer. The key is to understand the potential users of these location-based services in order to be able to find the next "location-based killer app".
Read the full article in the New York Times here.
Photo courtesy of cmbjn843
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8 Comments, Comment or Ping
Benedikt
Interesting post indeed. And the title is intriguing as it suggests that there might be someone else (machines, m2m, the web of things) who will make use of LBS more than we will do (location-based APIs?).
I agree on your thoughts that not everyone is going to use “Search nearby” - at least not all the time and for the reasons you and the two studies rightly pointed out.
But then the majority of people, though infrequently, does move to other locations than their most frequented ones and in this case (think of a holiday or a short trip) they surely will be using search.
In your daily life you might know where things are and don’t need to search for them - but I see other needs that can be fulfilled:
- know where your friends and contacts are (location aware social networking)
- get updates on news, events, concerts, get-togethers, etc. in your part of the city/your block (location-based news)
- share your thoughts on places (location tagging, geo bookmarking)
- discover new places
- …
This is at least what I would be using LBS for. User base of 1 understood, 500 million to go.
Cross-posted and commented at http://www.lewebmobile.com/2008/06/do-humans-really-need-location-based.html
Jun 9th, 2008
Elibom
Do we need LBS so badly?
Here I can possibly present one opinion from the consumer/end-user perspective. Before I really go to the details. I may review one simple concept and one theory here, which are “Home Range Concept” and “Traffic Pattern Theory”.
Home Range Concept. It is a concept that can be traced back to a publication in 1943 by W. H. Burt, who constructed maps delineating the spatial extent or outside boundary of an animal’s movement during the course of its everyday activities.
Traffic Pattern Theory. A people’s daily activity pattern is pretty regular, which comprises of several major events, such as school, work, home, shopping.
What happened here is if you are looking at the traffic pattern of a person, saying a full-time employed, 45 years, car, 3-person-household, one child, the regular activity route is so LIMITED. So, does this mean ….
reference
http://to.swang.googlepages.com/
http://to.swang.googlepages.com/lbs
Jun 11th, 2008
Ola
i am one of those who rather live on 12km2 square but i would need location based services eg for a night club search, holidays etc.. i think that people search for addresses quite often. how to get to somwhere even if you live in a city center.. others would still search for a shop, car wasching .. gps in a mobile phone is a cool stuff for me
Jun 14th, 2008
Sachendra Yadav
Yes, people go to the same places again and again, but what makes location based services important is dynamic data. I may know the local restaurant but I want to know what specials they’re offering today. I know the local movie theater but I want to know the listings for today. I know the local shopping mall but I want to know what discounts they have on right now.
Covered this in detail on my blog
http://sachendra.wordpress.com/2008/06/06/what-i-want-from-local-search-on-my-mobile/
Jun 18th, 2008
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