6 Players in the Location-Based Services Ecosystem

My last post on location-based services set the scene on the reasons why location-based services are picking up with the the growth in on-the-go consumers who are more freely sharing information socially, and with more location context.  With mobile phone-based location-based apps driving  business recommendation services through integration with the social media internet, multi-channel merchants that sell online and via physical stores have, in many cases, have been very effective in using these services to boost both real-world and digital traffic.

Who are the players of location-based services?  I have attempted to put together the location-based services ecosystem in the following value chain for our discussion.

1. Map Data Providers provide:
1. the base layer map data.
2. enriched hyperlocal POI (point of interest) data.
2. Application Software Providers
1. technology partners who build upon the map data providers' base layer map.
2. develop the user interface to work cross-platform, with customized features.
3. Advertising Network Providers
1. provide the connectors to ads in the LBS app.
2. and the field salesforce to sell the ads to brands.
4. Location-Based Content and Services Providers include
1. backend partners who serve out hyperlocal and relevant ads on behalf of merchants in partnered web and mobile sites.
2. front-end eShopping partners who vend free vouchers, paid eCoupons, aggregate deals.
5. Access and Provisioning Providers (Carriers / Operators) provide
1. affordable data plans to consumers and enterprises.
2. promotions in various marketing touch-points (Retail, SMS, MMS, PC internet, EDMs, DMs, Print, TV) to their targeted customer base.
6. Device Providers
1. work with the Carriers / Operators to provide out of box experience through preloading of the location-based services apps.
2. comprise the N-screens of mobile devices across PC, laptops, tablets, smartphones etc.

What are the revenue streams in location-based services?
Through Strategic Analytics, ABI research and various lit search, there are 3 main pillars of revenue streams in location-based services - some more immediately relevant, whilst others like community set to grow in the next 5 years.

1. Utilities
1. more immediate rational driver, referring to search, turn by turn navigation, personal tracking
2. for parents who would like to track their kids
3. for exploring and looking up places of interests and getting there on car or on foot
4. for enterprises for fleet management
2. Commerce
1. location-based eShopping deals
2. restaurant booking
3. mobile advertising
3. Community
1. social media integration leading to crowd-sourced sharing of recommendations
2. peer to peer value exchange
3. enabling more engagement with consumers through gamification

Before ending this post, I will leave you now with
2 real-world examples of how location-based services bring value and innovation to businesses in the ecosystem.

(1) Nokia Thailand Foursquare Campaign
Here is a first in the world campaign when a phone manufacturer (Nokia), a local operator/carrier (DTAC) and local Thai retailers came on board and collaborated to provide brand awareness of Foursquare check-ins with Nokia smartphones, value to DTAC consumers and driving real-world traffic to the retailers.  (Disclosure: I was involved in the working team for this campaign with my Nokia Thailand colleagues during my career at Nokia)

(2) Nokia Gift Vending Machine Social-Location-Mobile (So-Lo-Mo) innovation
A pretty neat program which provided real-world treats to people who checked in.  Delight: you never know what you are going to get!

1. How do the players in location-based services differ in your market?  
2. How do the campaign mechanics from location-based apps in your markets provide value as ancillary channels for businesses?

I look forward to hear from you on your comments to this post, and write more on these topics.

Later soon,
Nelson Wee
engage with me at @nelsonwee

References:
1. Infographic: Location-Based Social Media – Every Move You Make
2. Location Based Services Usage & Perception Survey from Microsoft

How Chicago Domino Pizza Created Raving Customers with Social Media (#SMSS10 Day 2)

Day 2 (6-MAY, 3 am, GMT+8) of the Social Media Success Summit 2010 continued building the momentum from where Guy Kawasaki kicked off, with lots of vigor and energies from both the presenters and the participants' #smss10 firehose of tweets.

There were 3 sessions in day 2. The third session "How a Chicago Pizza Franchise used Social Media to create Raving customers" was conducted with great passion by Ramon De Leon, well-known as the Pizza Guy to know in Chicago. Ramon's session was jam-packed with many cool ideas - some of which I captured from my tweets to this post.



Ramon remains committed to deliver his pizzas to his customers using both social media as well as on-ground events:
1. Online ordering in 1998.

2. AOL Instant Messenger in 2004.

3. Campus Outreach to Facebook Fan base from 2005 onwards.
- RT @marismith: "How do you get the retweet effect on Facebook?" @Ramon_DeLeon reaches out to Group/Page Admins. #smss10

4. Twitter with innovative hashtags
- #RamonWow for strong association
RT @MariSmith: Too fun!!! @Ramon_DeLeon has his own Twitter hashtag #ramonWOW http://bit.ly/9GLazt #smss10 (such a great idea!)
- # to enable dynamic offers

5. Twitter Photo Sharing
- Very personal sharing approach using TweetPhotos and getting customers to want photos and share them by @Ramon_DeLeon #smss10

6. Twitter IDs are conversational pieces
- RT @jaythedesignguy: Put your twitter IDs out there for people to see! Cards, billboards, cars! BE FOUND! @Ramon_DeLeon #smss10

- Promoting customers with a TwitterWall (distribute in pizza boxes) -> Neat Customer Intimacy & Engagement by @Ramon_LeDoan #smss10

My takeaways from Ramon when interacting with customers:
1. Be sincere in apologies to customers and you win them back
- his http://www.viddler.com/explore/dpzramon/videos/19/ has had more than 126,000 impressions

2. Always be ready to post and share content
- Ramon sent a video thanks from UK to a customer who was tweeting happily about his Domino
pizzas
- @RamonDeLeon Video Tools -> Flip Camera, Nokia N97 (5MP Camera, settings)

3. Stay focused and always engaged with your customers (potentials included)
- Monitter.com (looks like tweetdeck) is a great tool to monitor local (zip) topical (#hashtag) conversations says @Ramon_DeLeon #smss10
- Guest Pizza Maker Night Tweetup where a customer tweeted her request to learn to make pizzas - drew further conversations and engagements.
- Great tip->@Ramon_DeLeon to local businesses - set up your own location on FourSquare & see whos checking in & contact them! @kerifj

Ramon's mantra is to be the pizza guy from Chicago who always delivers his pizzas to his customers. And certainly, @Ramon_Deleon is redefining the Social Marketing Wow every min of this session => WOW! #smss10

There were much ground covered by Ramon in his presentation and I really look forward to you #smss10 participants out there could help me out in adding on to the comments.

Added to this post are related posts on Day 1 and Day 2 of #smss10 for your reference.


Till the next time,
Nelson Wee
@nelsonwee

Related Posts:
1. #SMSS10 Day 1 Twitter: What is this crap? by Maeve Donohue

2. #SMSS10 Day 1 Kicking off Social Media Success Summit 2010 with Guy Kawasaki by Janet Barclay

3. #SMSS10 Day 1 Wrapup: Social Media Success Summit 2010 (#SMSS10)by Randy Duermyer

4. #SMSS10 DAY 1: Guy Kawasaki on making the most of Twitter

5. #SMSS10 Day 2 Wrapup: Social Media Success Summit 2010 (#SMSS10) by Randy Duermyer

6. #SMSS10 Day 2 Social Media Success Summit: Mari Smith on spiffing up your Facebook presence by Emily Molitor

7. #SMSS10 DAY 2: Defining and measuring Social Media success with Jason Falls

8. New Viral Marketing Program: Domino’s Social Media Campaign Offers Free Food to “Pizza Holdouts”

9. NEW! 5 tips from Domino’s Ramon De Leon on how to engage in online conversations about your brand

3 Social News Apps for a Nokia Phone

In a previous post "4 Trends in New Digital Media Development", I wrote briefly about a trend where media consumption is going beyond only individual consumption.  There are now increasingly more applications and services from the media publishers available from the Apps Stores which are incorporating social sharing features.  Have a look below a good 2X2 overview chart from Distimo on the current Apps Stores in the market today.

In a report which Distimo wrote (yes, they do provide free monthly reports on apps stores, the downloads performance and killer categories etc), it was mentioned that by far the most sticky of all mobile apps was from the news and info genre - most sticky as a function of of frequency of use and lowest level of churn (this of course depends on the quality of the content).  From my usage of apps on my phone, I certainly do not discount this observation one bit.  In fact, all the 3 apps below - 2 from the news content genre and the last a Twitter client are on the home screen of my phone and constitute my daily news media fix in the mornings before I start work!

App #1: Snaptu - dashboard to News, Facebook, Twitter and more!

Snaptu offers me my daily news fix.  It is a free ads funded app which provides a dashboard to various business (e.g. economist, new york times), technology (e.g. techcrunch, gizmodo), content (e.g. paidcontent.org), entertainment news (e.g. tmz), sports (e.g. reutersports), weather forecast etc.  And the coolest social sharing thing? I could share interesting news articles and information nuggets to my Facebook Wall, my twitter account or an email address!  I am currently using Snaptu on my Nokia N97 mini device but this app is also available for other platforms.  Enough said, catch the video on this cool app.

Other reviews and information on Snaptu can be found below:
- Snaptu on Facebook 
- oneforty.com


App #2: AP Mobile - Stellar News Reader from Associated Press - text, photos and video news!

I like the AP Mobile App from the Associated Press as it provides me with excellent news categorisations by region, country and also by media, i.e. text, photos and even streaming videos.  It is certainly a very nice and rich news media reader and ... you guessed it, social sharing tool - allowing you to share the news article you found interesting to your Twitter account or an email address or Delicious or even a text message!  I run AP Mobile app on my Nokia N97 mini but it also works on other platforms as well.  Check out the AP Mobile website for more details.


App #3: Gravity - Gorgeous Twitter App for multiple Twitter accounts and image uploading

Thanks to all of you wonderful online friends, my Twitter account is by far and large the most up-to-date news channel for me.  I get deja vu when I listen to the radio DJs using old news or the news channel on the TV.  And so, talking about Gravity. This richly featured Twitter App, which by the way, looks simply gorgeous, is a main stay as one of the home screen shortcut icons on my Nokia N97 mini.  It allows me to configure multiple Twitter accounts (if I have more than one, at this point only @nelsonwee), upload pictures to various Twitter Image services like TwitPic, monitor Twitter trends, form groups, get audio alerts etc.

Have a look at the following video on Gravity.

As for entertainment on the move, there are a couple more other apps I could talk about, probably in a subsequent post. 

Catch you later.
Nelson Wee
@nelsonwee

4 Trends in New Digital Media Development

Quick, very quick these days.

As the months go by, 4 trends are emerging in the new digital social space in terms of what, how and where media is being presented to consumers and how interactions are taking place.

1) New Behavior: From Individual Consumption to Social Sharing
Reading and keeping up to date with news around you is mandated - like a daily coffee fix, especially in today's world where information flows go by in a flurry.  News from print and radio are old.  And so there are digital versions of newspapers and radio made into apps.  To keep up with the changing digital generations, these apps have evolved from standalone features to contain social sharing capabilities.

2) New Evolving Business Models: From Per Download to Metering or Freemium or Social Currencies
One off pay per download digital contents start to lose their luster from a business point of view.  We start to see experimentations in metering, getting freemiums into play or developing social games where social currencies are the in-thing for today's world.

3) New Touchpoint/Access: From Few to Multiple Appliance Readers
The age-old radio, TV and Movie Theaters are set to be replaced or a revamp, as we see new multimedia and internet capabilities come to mobile phones, e-book readers, netbooks etc.

4) New Reach: From Global to Hyperlocal and vice versa
The search for location specific information is hot.  Because the immediacy to satisfy your contextual needs is deemed relevant.

I will be making associated observations and looking to provide examples of how the above trends are impacting our behaviors in this day and age of new media consumption.  Do feel free to share your thoughts and experiences.


Talk soon,
Nelson Wee
@nelsonwee

Photo credit: ryersondmz / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA