RainAware App

I am giving a new rain prediction app a test run. The app claims to predict the weather better because of an algorithm that combines inputs from several sources to model out the likelihood and timing of rain for a lat/lon.

The interesting thing about an app like this is that if it works a the first time a user will probably keep it and test it some more. However, if someone uses it the first time and it misses by to wide a margin or is "wrong", the app will get one star and be deleted, without an acknowledgement that what the developers are trying to do is actually very complex. It will be difficult to grade an app like this because there are very few out there to compare it against.

First thing I will note is the UI need attention from a professional designer. It looks like the work of a developer. Time will tell if it will deliver on its promise.

Nokia Buys Geo Search Co. MetaCarta

Nokia announced it acquired MetaCarta. I've mentioned MetaCarta here before. They specialize in location-aware services and provide a geo-tagging engine and other products/services. Nokia is most obviously interested in leveraging MetaCarta's tools for Nokia phones.

The press release states "MetaCarta’s technology will be used in the area of local search in Location and other services." A not so insightful or revealing comment.

This acquisition comes after Nokia acquired Novarra -- a mobile browser and platform.

Here's more coverage:

•       Techcrunch
•       MetaCarta Press Release
•       Directions

The folks over at Directions Magazine offer some good commentary. I agree with them that a major publisher probably missed the boat in not acquiring MetaCarta. This is exactly the technology you need to help automate a hyper-local strategy which will be even more important as location-aware mobile devices proliferate.

Roundup: Twitter Geo Live, FourSquare to Offer Biz Tools, Layar Relaunches, Hubbard Does DataSphere

Interest in Geo is accelerating. There was too much geo news to cover in individual posts, so here's a brief list:

• Technology Review covers challenges of determining physical location accurately and turning coordinates into meaningful information, and protecting users' privacy.
• ReadWriteWeb notes that Layar re-released its augmented reality iPhone app this time with Foursquare integration. 
• The NY Times reports Foursquare, plans to "distribute a free analytics tool and dashboard in the coming weeks that will give business owners access to a range of information and statistics about visitors to their establishments."
• Twitter just turned on its geolocation today, according to TechCrunch. TC notes, "While Twitter’s geolocation feature has been live through its API since last November, there was no sign of integration into the main twitter.com site until now."
• CNET reports Google Maps is "set to provide a new option for getting around town: biking directions" during the National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C.
• DataSphere is back in the news, this time launching hyper-local sites with Hubbard Broadcasting.
• Everyone is reporting that Facebook location sharing is coming soon.
  
  
   

Sysomos Puts FourSquare on the Map

Users of FourSqare may love this. Sysomos just launched FourWhere, "a new and free location-based social search service from Sysomos that mashes-up locations and comments from Foursquare with the Google Maps API."

That's a cool idea, because there needs to be a way to intuitively find comments from FourSquare users, similar to reviews or tips. It makes sense to translate the data into a mashup, since it is location-based data.

The company fashions itself as providing sentiment analysis as competitive analysis. There's a huge opportunity for media to take this "data" and use it for real-time feedback before, during and after events they cover, not unlike what CNN.com did with Crimson Hexagon.

WHERE Claims Ads Lift CTR 3X

According to Fierce Wireless , uLocate launched Where Ads a service to offer hyper-local mobile ads. Of note, uLocate claims, "the click through rates on WHERE Ads exceeded other mobile ads by as much as three times.

This reinforces the findings of eMarkerter and others -- location adds relevancy and with relevancy 
consumers are more apt to click.


Coverage also at Gigaom.com, Internet2go, etc.

Mobile Users Like Geo-Targeted Ads

Not only do mobile users want personalized services, they like geo-targeted ads, according to a recent survey by eMarketer.

The recap of the study makes a point of highlighting “Geo-fencing” by 1020 PlaceCast, which provides personalized marketing messages to shoppers based on their location.

The responses to the 1020 Placecast ShopAlerts program were as follows:

* 60% said the location-triggered messages were “cool” and “innovative.”
* 79% claimed to be more likely to visit a store.
* 65% made a purchase.
* 73% were likely to use the service again.

While the cool and innovative comments may wane as this type of advertising become more common, you have to be excited to hear nearly 80% of the recipients would be more likely to visit a store due to the ads.

Waze Partners with Intermap

Waze.com is a crowd-sourced traffic information provider.They just formed a partnership with Intermap Technologies: "Through ongoing analysis, Intermap can supplement its existing road change detection process, noting when new roads appear or existing roads change. Combining the Waze data with satellite imagery analysis, the Company will enhance its change detection capability and be enabled to pinpoint where additional technologies can be utilized to capture new and altered roads." Crowd-sourced traffic data could present a great opportunity for local media to offer surface street traffic data.

DIY Foursquare - Maybe Good Idea for Local Media

This may make sense for some local media companies looking to experiment in LBS or implement a solution for a niche site.

Advertising Age mentions a company called Socialight which has turned its Community Platform from B2C to B2B. Last week they launched a white label solution to help brands create their own Foursquare/Loopt/LBS  Solution. Advertising Age describes it as "Ning for LBS." On the face of it, it makes no sense to recreate the wheel, but it may be a good option for unique contests and niche sites create by local media companies that don't want to go into strategic talks.

Placecast's ShopAlerts to Deliver on Mobile Promise

Greg Sterling posted an interesting announcement from Placecast. If you haven't heard of Placecast and you are interested in monetizing LBS or hyperlocal initiatives you should get to know what they do.I met them a year ago at Where 2.0 and discovered they could close the gap between my geovision and implementation.

Placecast's ShopAlerts allows retailers to create automated SMS alerts that are sent to consumers when they are near a retail outlet with which they have opted-in. Then as the consumer goes about their daily life they are automatically alerted when they are near a retail location of any specials. A key to ShopAlerts is that it does not require a smartphone. Someday this will not be a competitive advantage but for now it is because most people don't use smartphones. According to Screenwerk, four retailers are on board at launch: SONIC, American Eagle Outfitters, and REI.

This is the second announcement this week where a company is delivering on the early promise of mobile and LBS. Loopt made an announcement  for a pay per action solution coming soon.
 
Update 2/27: It looks like North Face is also experimenting with Placecasts approach. According to Media Buyer Planner North Face has a campaign where Placecast "created 1,000 fenced areas in and around the cities where the North Face has many stores. The North Face also chose locations where there is a lot of snow and rain, so it could tailor its messages to the weather."

Loopt Seeks Advertising 'Holy Grail'

Awash in all the announcements at the Mobile World Congress was the announcement by Loopt that they would offer a new performance-based hyper-local advertising solution.

Mobile Marketing Watch writes, "Loopt could essentially allow a company to keep track of ads shown and whether people actually visited a location later using GPS or voluntary location-sharing," such as check-ins. This, "allows for a cost-per-action pricing model in lieu of more traditional and out-dated cost-per-impression or CPC models."

Many call this the 'Holy Grail' of performance marketing or advertising because it offers real accountability. The advertiser pays for actual visits to their store, not impressions, or clicks. The opportunity is obviously unique to mobile devices and points to why so many people are deeply interested in hyperlocal  and location based services as of late.


"The company’s CEO said there would a self-serve way of buying these ads.  Much farther down the line, one could imagine a bidding model where businesses set the value of a potential store visit from a new customer, for example, akin to Google’s advertising bidding system for clicks," wrote Mobile Marketing Watch.

CNN Experiment Points to Local Opportunity

Traditional media is struggling to figure how to integrate and leverage social media. They want to use Facebook and Twitter because they see how they are growing forces in how people discover, consume and communicate news and information. This past week CNN's experiment with Twitter for the State of the Union Address created a giant road-sign for other media to follow as to one way to use social media and geo-tagging to create relevant content and context.

As far as I know, the Huffington Post was the only media outlet to spot and report on this experiment. CNN partnered with a company called Crimson Hexagon to "analyze almost 150,000 Twitter responses to President Obama's speech." The responses were geo-coded allowing them to provided a sentiment heat map of sorts for the entire United States. Similar to the interactive electoral map CNN used during the general election, John King touched on a state on the interactive map of the U.S. which zoomed the map onto the state and revealed tweet sentiment in that state. An executive with Crimson Hexagon alluded to the future potential in her statements about the product roadmap.

"In major events like the State of the Union, we actually want to get to real-time analysis," she said. "We also want to get, if we can, more granular with location, based on cities and zip codes rather than just states," Melyssa Plunkett-Gomez, an executive with Crimson Hexagon, told the Huff post.

There in lies one of the glaring opportunities for local media. As the algorithms improve for filtering the content and the volume of content grows, there will be an opportunity to repeat the same coverage at a hyper-local level. A TV station could drill down on a county, a zip code or even a city block to offer real-time "sentiment." The technology and know-how is available to do this online and on-air now through companies like Google, Crimson Hexagon, Twitter and Facebook, Outside.in, MetaCarta, WDT Inc., Layar, etc.

Looking beyond CNN's specific use of Twitter, the same technologies could be used to bubble up user generated photos and videos in real-time around a breaking news or developing stories. The value of this should be even more obvious to journalists. Crowdsourcing allows you to go from one or two reporters on the scene sending back reports , to "N" number of eyewitnesses sending you eyewitness reports in real-time. As I mentioned, this can be done now. What appears to be missing is a vision or will to try it.

'Traffic' Opportunity for Local Media

If you are in local media, you may want to talk to the folks at Waze.com. They need you and you could use them. They are developing their own maps from older census maps. They are verifying/updating their map by rewarding people for driving on roads. As people drive a road waze gets (1) validation the road exists, (2) gets traffic flow data (3) gets incident reports.

They need a media partner to help increase adoption. Media could benefit from working with them because they can drive engagement in the traffic product/section and create revenue opportunities.

Regarding engagement, viewers could be encouraged to participate in the reporting of incidents and the ability to ask other users (via an instant msg interface) what traffic to expect ahead. Media could reward some viewers by making them "traffic reporters/spotters" who's
updates auto post to the maps via apps and Wap decks.

As revenue goes, they can place advertisers such as Domino's pizza locations on maps. They can ads including the ability to reward people who visit a Domino's (verified via GPS) with a coupon.

Keep in mind, their data is crowd sourced and not very deep, yet. That's why they need help. So, the best use of their data would be as a supplement, or overlay one "professional data" on a mash up, such as Google traffic data.

Augmented Reality in 2010, 3D View of News

I have been reading a lot about augmented reality this year. I first learned about it through the Layar app for Android and later found a great article in Wired explaining some of the pitfalls and benefits of the technology players. This is life-changing technology if done correctly.

Potentially, someone who is standing in any city or even a block can use the application to gain information about that area. For instance, the user could hold their Android or iPhone up and on screen would appear floating tags giving information about the direction and distance to public transportation, or a restaurant, or user-generated photos of the area, or real estate for sales, or any data that is available via EveryBlock or similar services.

There are any number of tactical and practical uses for this technology. However, I found the vision of Metaio to be extremely provocative. Metaio allows users to also place animated avatars on maps.

According to one Wired interview, one possible use is for "game developers to use Metaio’s and Earthmine’s technology to create realistic, non-gimmicky games that take place in real-world cities starting in 2010. An ad-supported model for AR gaming is easy to envision: local businesses could pay to have the game send players past their storefronts."

This short comment opens the door for an endless number of uses for the augmented reality for commercial purposes. For instance, maybe a local store could place special messaging in the augmented reality, such as an animated avatar outside their business that includes the announcement of a discount or coupon or sale.

In a breaking news event, users could see avatars of each other giving perspective and location to their views of the event. Near real-time reports and photos could be shared in the 3D environment allowing users to experience an event from many perspectives.

"Push" Technology Gets It's Due

I've been thinking a lot about push technology lately. It was a buzz term in the late 90's. I was outspoken for years that it would not work. Suddenly, I realized (sorry if I am slow) some very compelling "push" technologies (not called push) are emerging with the proliferation of smart mobile devices.

I was doing my usual reading around hyper local, GeoWeb, etc., when I came across this post on TechCrunch about ambient streams. If you look at the Venn diagram it closely aligns with my own thoughts in this blog.

The author, Edo Segal, says, "The Holy Grail is a filter which only serves up information which is relevant based on who you are, your social graph, what you or your friends are doing now, what you or friends have done before, and in context of other information you are consuming."

That's where the similarities end. Segal goes on to hypothesize that this combination of Realtime Web, Published Information, Geolocation Data, and Social Communications via an intelligent filter will change how we experience reality.

"A very useful metaphor is that humanity is constructing its own synthetic sixth sense. An ambient sense that perceives the context of your activity and augments your reality with related information and experiences. Increasingly, we will be sensing the world with this sixth sense and that will change the way we collectively experience the world, "Segal wrote.

I'm not one to predict the future. I'm pretty grounded and practical. So, I'll just say that I think he is on to something. This augmented reality is coming, or is here in some forms already. To me, it is essentially a push technology that will change the way we view the world in a very literal sense and possibly in a philosophical sense.

Finally, push is getting its due.

LR Tweeted About Media Companies Going Local in Seattle

Lost Remote reports two Seattle media companies created neighborhood news sites to build hyperlocal communities -- The Hearst-owned SeattlePI.com, launched InQueenAnne.com and KOMO TV, the Fisher-owned ABC affiliate, launched neighborhood sites.
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Google Reaches Out to Local Business

Google is reaching out to small businesses in San Francisco. While it is positioned as an opportunity to learn for businesses, it is more likely a chance for Google to learn -- basically, a focus group. It is hard to believe Google would conduct these sessions all across the country. Traditionally, they have monetized the long tail through better technology and automation.

The article in Local Search News states, "Google is providing a very valuable service here, but business owners need better communication and support from Google."

Google needs to understand local business better and understand where their are getting tripped up by Google services in order to drive adoption.

This is again a shot across the bow of local media.

New iPhone, New GeOpportunity

File this one under "why geo matters."

An E&P article on the new iPhone reads, "the newspaper can send relevant content and, more important, relevant targeted advertising within 2 blocks on a person's location. "This makes local advertising on mobile highly potent with high CPMS," said Art Howe, CEO of Verve Wireless.