Navigating the Roadblocks to Consumer LBS Success - Articles: "Articles

location based services



Navigating the Roadblocks to Consumer LBS Success
By Erica Karlsen
(Apr 25, 2006)Post a comment


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I have come to terms with something that I have tried to overcome for years now. Despite the fact that I work for a mobile technology company, staying on top of current trends and working with industry experts, at the end of the day I am still a mobile user like anyone else. I may know more about mobile location than most people but as a civilian, I still just want my mobile services to be practical or fun, easy, reliable and affordable.

Can�t we all just play together?
For example, I love my cool, new 3G mobile that happens to take fantastic photos and video. But it frustrates me no end that I can�t send pictures to most of my friends because they, like normal people (and in accordance with the chaos theory), have contracts with different carriers and there is no full interoperability for MMS, at least not here in Spain, and not in most other markets either. I often think how much money the operators aren�t earning because of this (and, on the bright side, how much I�m not spending). Apparently there is some way to upload your photos to the Web and your friends can be told to check them, but as a user, that just seems like too much trouble. It�s like a joke that requires so much explanation that it completely loses its funny.

I use this little anecdote to help illustrate why I see interoperability as crucial to the success of many location-enhanced mobile applications. Lots of these services"