I love the idea of location based services like Google Latitude and Foursquare. I usually try to check-in at some of the most interesting places I go so that I can keep track of where I’ve been. I might also want to share it with a friend or look back on it for a blog post later.
Tonight when I checked in at my church on foursquare, I noticed that someone had stolen the mayorship from me and I was 9 days away from being mayor again. I usually check-in twice a week and when I was there last Sunday I was still the mayor. What happened?
I started to wonder how/why someone would check-in so often? What were they doing there? Did they work there? Maybe they were picking up their child from daycare every day?
I understand that foursquare is competitive in nature in that some people try to game the system by checking in everywhere, sometimes in fictitious locations, but what happens when an employee checks in every day before work making almost impossible for someone to steal their mayorship?
Its interesting when consider that a business might be trying to offer specials for local patrons that are loyal to their favorite haunt. How do you think businesses should deal with this?
I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on this. What do you think? How would you deal with employees that have never ending mayorships at their workplace?
If you follow any news about Google, undoubtedly you know that Google has released a new social network called Google+. At it’s core, Google+ brings the best of each social networking platform to this new service: updates, social sharing, photos and check-ins. IF Google+ is successful, it’s going to be huge for them. Why? They’re accomplishing exactly what shareholders want, users spending more time on their site with their products.
But there’s another interesting, somewhat overlooked feature of the Google+ platform that could ultimately benefit both Google and advertisers: Check-ins. As more users push towards using mobile first, this is quickly becoming a burgeoning area for opportunity among small business owners.
Let’s take a look at the tools that Google has under it’s tool belt:
The Android platform is ground-zero for this entire idea. Everything will feed into the phone and use it’s GPS to determine the user’s location and which deals are available based on checkins through Google+ and past Google Offers.
From the Walstreet Journal: By 2014, 70% of U.S. consumers will have smartphones and 52% of those will be NFC-capable, according to estimates by payment consultancy Mercator Advisory Group. Already, app developers, wireless carriers, banks and card companies are racing to shape the potentially lucrative mobile-payments ecosystem. Google also is working with 16 retailers, including American Eagle Outfitters Inc., Walgreen Co., Macy’s and Subway, to develop its own point-of-sale service, called SingleTap. Under this system, consumers will be able to pay with credit accounts stored on the phone, redeem promotions and earn loyalty points.
Google Wallet is currently being beta tested in San Francisco and New York, but there should be larger markets opening up by the end of the year.
Businesses can use Google Places to help improve their search results. This can be helpful for both desktop and mobile users. The Google Places app on Android allows users to read reviews as well as check-in to businesses on Latitude and Google+. The more a user checks in, the more rewards they could earn. There’s also a mobile version for web users as well as an iPhone version where users can also leave reviews of the business. Businesses can also offer special deals on the web version of their Google Places page to help entice customers to visit their stores.
Goolge+ has a better chance with users adopting checkins than Google Latitude because it’s a new service and most users on Google+ might not realize Latitude can run in the background on their phone tracking their every move. Most users are accustomed to checking in on foursquare, gowalla or facebook places, so this would be a welcome addition to most users. It is yet to be seen how Google+ will integrate checkins with Google Places and rewards.
Google Latitude is where things really start to get interesting. Being able to track movements over time as well as the ability to automatically checkin using geo-fencing opens up new possibilities on the analytical side for Google Places.
Currently beta testing in Portland, New York City and The Bay Area. Google Offers is likely to be a competitor to Groupon. Users can buy discounts to their favorite restaurants.
Tying it all together
Theoretically, if Google were to tie all of this information together, here’s what I think will happen:
Since all Android phones require a Google account to work, there will be at least one way to track each individual user. As the popularity of Google+ increases, it will become harder for most users to resist using Google+.
Some of these users will ultimately start checking into places with their friends creating yet another piece of the puzzle. Using Latitude’s History tracking, Google can create a profile based on each users most likely time to visit their favorite bar.
Because the phone uses Google Wallet and the user has used it in the past, Google can build a profile of what that customer is most likely to buy.
Since Google can understand the sentiment of the customers visit based on their review, it will know if they are most likely to return again in the future.
Google can the use Google offers to precisely target the customer based on past history, offering them coupons for items their most likely to buy.
Google could help small businesses target and reward a select and highly active group of people without breaking the bank by offering deals such as what we see daily on Groupon.
Which would be a better deal, offer 53 highly active customers 1/2 dinner and 12 somewhat active customers a free appetizer when they check in with two friends or selling 1,000 $25 for $50 worth of cuisine to everyone in your town?
Eventually Google will have the metrics and data to support all of this, but how will customers and users react?
Some advocacy groups will cry foul and see this as an invasion of privacy, but Google answers to its shareholders who demand more ROI from Google’s products.
This type of service would also be a direct competitor with Groupon and Foursquare. It will be interesting to see how the market reacts if something like this were to happen.
So Aaron showed me this secluded stop along the way to the BRP and I would have had no idea this place even existed if it weren’t for him. I almost forgot how to get there, but thankfully, since I get tagged one of my images on twitter with the location I was able to look it up in Google to find out exactly where I took the photo at if I ever wanted to return there.
There is no longer denying the use of what we currently call “smartphones” will only continue to increase their capacity as technology becomes cheaper.
The way that we use our phones will also continue to change as more phones utilize what is known as Location Based Services or LBS which uses various methods of A-GPS.
This is a pretty new area for newspapers to start exploring and I would like to see more attention paid to local advertising using LBS.
I recently saw an article that described the idea of using an Augmented Reality app that runs on the Android Phone that showed nearby tweets and various other types of information. Wikitude: (Android)TwitAround: (iPhone)
The basic idea of TwitAround is that by using the phone’s accelerometer you can see real-time tweets happening around you.
We also know that data needs relationships and newspapers are historically good about gathering data. What they are not good at is how the record and distribute that information.
My idea is the build an application that harnesses all of this data and makes it available on your phone.
Examples
Example 1: You are a first time home buyer looking in the Rosewood area on Maple for a home. By simply pointing your phone at a home, you are instantly able to see MLS listings, tax parcel service look ups and average utility usage charges. You are also able to see local related stories, photos, tweets, video, crime stats and so forth.
Example 2: You are the same home buyer and you travel to the intersection of Wheat and Rosewood and come upon Hand Middle School where you children may attend. By pointing your phone at the school, you are able to see publicly accessible data such as SAT scores, teachers salaries, crime reports, stories about the school, historical context and more.
Example 3: You are at a high school football game where Hammond is playing Heathwood Hall. By pointing your phone at a jersey on the field, you would be able to see team roster, individual stats, results in various weather conditions, past games, photos, videos and tweets.
Example 4: You are are at the museum of art and want to know more about the painting you are looking at. By pointing your phone, you are able to see historical context, painters bio, similar paintings and more.
A business model
In a virtual interview that I did with Dan Conover, I found this quote to be interesting
“The issue with augmented reality, then, isn’t the technology. You need a platform that communicates it, a system that structures and creates it, a business model that understands its value and how to communicate it, and user devices and software agents that accurately interpret and negotiate it. The issue is content and how to pay for it. ”
The problem is that we need a business model that rewards someone for adding value (i.e., meaningful content that people actually want). Until that happens, then every business that approaches augmented reality is going to treat it as just another way of delivering no-cost crap. It’s going to be mass-media executives trying to figure out how to use Facebook all over again. Business people tend to look at networked media as a way to make free money off of somebody else’s content, but there’s not going to be a sustainable business here until we work out the connections and expectations and exchanges..
While what Dan is saying is correct, I don’t think that it will be an entire ‘crap in, crap out’ model either. Just as Twitter has become popular, so will it’s ability to filter tweets through geolocation.
What we need is a better way to rate and log information through various algorithms that will sort the good from the bad. Part of the connections that we need to work out will be taking and filtering raw data as Berner Lee suggested, but also pulling content from our own archives and making that available through various API’s.
Mindy McAdams also raises an interesting point in here post ‘Augmented Reality: a business model.’
Each view of a node can be tracked. Each visit to the node can be tabulated. I think the opportunities for selling would be fantastic — the whole process could be automated. The advertiser pays a small fee to have the privilege of viewing all visits to a node. This is like micro-metrics for local businesses. The fee is necessary because you want it to be monthly or yearly, and you want it tied to a true identity. The account can be modified to allow advertisers to input and update their own coupons, etc. Then they pay per ad, per length of time, per update, etc. But it’s all hands-free for the entity that owns the app.
Not only would this tie in well with local advertisers, it would also open an entirely new stream of revenue we haven’t previously seen. It’s hard to answer the question of “how are we going to make money off of this?” because we’ve never done it before. The closest thing we’ve ever had to this would be a ‘bar database.’
Results indicate that A-GPS locations obtained using the 3G iPhone are much less accurate than those from regular autonomous GPS units (average median error of 8 m for ten 20-minute field tests) but appear sufficient for most Location Based Services (LBS). WiFi locations using the 3G iPhone are much less accurate (median error of 74 m for 58 observations) and fail to meet the published accuracy specifications.
but that’s something we’ll have to address in another post.
Steps to getting started
1. You data will have to be available in a raw format. Hopefully, you’ll be able to use the COPE method, or the more controversial hnews for your information. 2. Your data will have to be given relationships and linked to other data. 3. Your data will have to be given a specific longitude, latitude for future reference. 4. You’ll can build your own publish platform or you can use openly available API’s like Layar. 5. All of your photos and stories will require stronger semantic data. No more incomplete information. 6. You’ll have to actually have a team who can code all of this for you.
Conclusion
Where we go from here really depends on how much news organizations want to invest in this type of technology. At the very least, we can take small steps by adding value to our stories through our Content Management System by using keywords and physical locations if they support it. (Hint: MNI does!)
This is my attempt to track the reactions of University of South Carolina football fans as they take on the Alabama Crimson Tide. Are they general loyal fans or do their reactions ebb and flow with the Gamecocks performance? Let’s see. For this experiment I’m using Cover it Live and keyword searches on Twitter. This experiment would be more interesting if I were able to use Twitter’s Geo-location API to hone in on the exact location of the stadium.
One note, I was only able to search for “USC” and not “USC AND not Notre Dame” so there are also tweets about the other USC in here as well.
When was the last time you noticed a dateline in the newspaper? Do your readers even know the purpose of a dateline?
In the 1800 and 1900′s before the internet, mobile computing and GPS, using a dateline was fine, the relationship to the location was understood and in present day it still is, but in the age of the links, having a standard dateline doesn’t work. If the Internet is built on semantic information, why not relate the physical location in a digital environment?
There’s a lot of talk about the future of hyperlocal journalism, but have you noticed how the same old standards for datelines still apply to the online world?
Understand this, it just doesn’t work the same way!
Location based services and stories with specific geolocations will be vital to the next newsroom.
There are numerous applications that use location based services. Brightkite and AroundMe are two examples for the iPhone. As smart-phones gain popularity among users, we will see a dramatic shift in the way people send and receive information. That opens the doors for great opportunities in hyperlocal journalism and advertising.
Who could benefit from this?
Weekly and small dailies who produce a lot of community journalism are most likely to succeed with an idea like this. Their focus is more on covering their community, so they are more likely to have a larger set of data to work with.
What are some examples?
Example 1: Take this story written in the Fort Mill Times, a McClatchy newspaper. Fire destroys Indian Land house under construction The reporter Jenny Overman does a great job of telling us what happened at the scene, but there is no mention of the exact location of the house.
I’m sure that residents in that area saw the smoke and were very curious about what was going on. By using the geolocation of the phone and home, readers would be able to get updates about the story based on their physical location.
Example 2: Let’s say that you’ve decided that you want to go play golf in Hilton Head Island at Harbour Town Golf Links, which has been the past host of the Verizon Heritage Tournament. You’re standing around waiting to tee off, so you open your phone which determines your location and shows you ever article, photo and video about the hole your stand at.
Haven’t I heard this before?
Yes you have! outside.in and Everyblock are very similar, but newspapers haven’t taken the time to get rid of the industry old byline and update it with new methods using longitude, latitude.
Outside.in does a decent job of showing some local news from the Columbia area, but it depends on crowdsourcing to give a link a location or place. This could be circumvented by having a reporter and photographer use a GPS device.
News companies need to invest in technology that will harness this power if they hope to be a competitor in the online market. It’s only a matter of time before someone comes along and does it bigger and better than we could and we’ll be left shaking our heads asking “Why didn’t newspapers think of this?”
Where do we go from here?
Every story that’s written in a newspaper that references a real world location should have a gelocation tag associated with it.
Reporters and photographers should use a Spot Me GPS, iPhone or equivalent device.
If there’s a way to archive and update old stories to include location, it should be done.
All future information will have to be catalogued for future reference.
There’s more research that could be done on this and I would love to your thoughts and opinions about it.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.
