Posts Tagged ‘location-based’

Posted on August 4, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Infographic: How Check-Ins Work in Location-Based Apps

Check-ins are the core action of location-based apps. They let your friends know where you are and businesses know that you have arrived at their location. But how do they work, who has access to the data and what can you do with the data? I’m glad you asked. Over the past few days I’ve been thinking creating a location-based infographic so I created a “How Check-ins Work In Location-Based Apps” infographic.

The goal of the infographic is to show how smartphone users check-in with location-based apps such as @TriOut, @Foursquare, @Gowalla, @Whrrl and more at businesses. Also to show privacy options, how location-based services partners can see your check-ins via APIs and location-based dashboards. I created two versions per feedback from friends/partner but as I tweeted this morning, I’ll let @Flowtown stick to creating shiny infographics.

How Check-Ins Work in Location-Based Apps version 1

How Check-Ins Work in Location-Based Apps version 2

Let me know which infographic you like and if you understand how the process works in the comments.

Posted on July 16, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Location Based Marketing and the 80/20 Rule of Business – Guest post via @GreggVM

Guest Post by: Gregg @GreggVM works as a business consultant, freelance writer and TriOut Sales Manager/Advisor. Gregg writes at http://www.greggmorris.com

In 1906 and Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto came up with a formula to describe the inequality in the distribution of wealth throughout his country. He found that 80% of the wealth was concentrated in the pockets of 20% of the people.

In the late 1940’s, Joseph Juran, a Quality Measurement guy, stated a principle that he called “the vital few and the trivial many”. He had found that 20% of the defects caused 80% of the problems. A few problems, those 20%, are vital and many, those 80%, are trivial.

Over the years the discovery of both men came to be applied, and appeared to hold true, for many areas in business and in life. Those discoveries came to be called the Pareto Principle, likely because it sounded so much better than the Juran Principle. It’s also come to be known as the 80/20 Rule of Buisness.

If you didn’t run across it in business classes, or while you were making your business “bones”, you’ve likely heard it mentioned in a number of places. 20% of your stock takes up 80% of your space. 80% of your stock comes from 20% of your suppliers. And the big one, 20% of your customers account for 80% of your revenue generation.

Small businesses, especially those in brick and mortar, seem to have a hard time buying into the principle sometimes. The value of the principle, whether you buy into the exact percentages or not, is that it reminds you to focus on the 20% who matter. You’ve likely heard it said that it’s a lot easier to get a current customer to spend more money with you than it is to get or acquire a new customer.

Those current customers are your 20% and location based marketing is starting to provide the means to directly interact and engage with them in ways you’ve never been able to. Through the use of welcome and check in specials, as well as location based coupons and other specials, you can reward your best customers and give them opportunities and incentives that will make them want to spend more money with you. And it won’t cost you much money at all to do so.

I wrote yesterday how I thought that the promotion Ann Taylor is doing with Foursquare, while good to see and very well crafted, could be improved to reward not just the Mayor of the stores, but those 20% who drive their business revenue as well.

Location based services and apps are starting to provide even more ways to market to and engage directly with your best customers. TriOut introduced their freemium and premium business models last week. Their premium package takes that engagement level up several notches with messaging and real time alerts. Imagine the possibilities that messaging your best customers could do for your marketing and sales efforts, your ability to build a community around your business. And that’s on top of check in specials and coupons too. You can also get real time alerts when a customer checks in, posts a photo or a review. The possibilities for customer engagement there is as exciting as it can be. To the best of my knowledge, TriOut is the only service offering this at the moment but you know the others won’t be far behind.

In the past, you’ve perhaps used some kind of loyalty card or program to reward those vital 20%. Are you beginning to get a sense of how location based marketing can not only drive new customers your way but how it can be used to grow your revenues and ring your registers through creative engagement with your best customers?

One last little nugget about Vilfredo Pareto. He also observed that we as humans are not really motivated by logic and reason but by sentiment. I’ll bet that you could use location based marketing to tap into that and form some great emotional connections with your community of customers. They’ll be telling great stories about you and your business forever.

Posted on June 7, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

TriOut launches HTML5 location-based check-in web app for Android and iPhone users plus API

Since TriOut launched the iPhone app back in December one of the most asked questions was when will TriOut have a native app for Android and other mobile platforms. While we haven’t launched a native app yet, this past Thursday during the TriangleTweetup, TriOut founder Lawrence Ingraham @LawPower made two announcements bringing TriOut closer to having a native app for other platforms and helping TriOut Android users have a better experience.

The first announcement was the launch of the TriOut API. The API provides methods to interact with our system, pulling location information, providing check in for your users, pretty much anything you can find in the TriOut system will be available. With the launch of the API we’re excited about the possibility of other apps being by developed using the TriOut platform such as a new iPhone app and/or Android App. The TriOut API was also used for inclusion with Check.in and you can see full documenation at http://api.trioutnc.com/

The second announcement was the launch of the new mobile experience for Android and iPhone users at http://mobile.TriOutNC.com. The new mobile experince is an HTML5 web app built with the new API. With http://mobile.TriOutNC.com it brings an entirely different look and feel to TriOut and focuses on a faster check-in experience, a better way to see your friends activity, finding nearby places, and upcoming events. The new app also supports check-in awards/badges, access to your messages and soon you’ll be able to update your settings all from the web app.The mobile app works great for Android users and although it’s not a native app we think it’s pretty darn close. Here are a few screenshots of the app.

Here’s what one Android user tweeted about the new mobile app.

For Blackberry and Palm TriOut users, you can still check-in by using: http://m.TriOutNC.com

We’re very excited about the API and the new mobile web app as our goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to “Explore the Triangle”, check-in, post reviews, and see what your friends are up to. Thanks for the support and let us know what you think in the comments.

What are your thoughts on native apps vs web HTML5 apps for checking in?

Posted on June 2, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Podcast #12: 9 questions with @Schneidermike on Location-Based Services: Foodspotting, Foursquare, check.in, Facebook & privacy

This week on the SocialWayne.com Podcast I had a chance to interview with an interview Schneidermike (@schneidermikeon) of allen and gerritsen. During the podcast I asked Schneidermike 9 questions on Location-Based Services, Foodspotting, Foursquare, check.in, Facebook and privacy. Take a look at the questions and listen to the podcast below.

1. Who is Schneidermike?
2. What are Schneidermike thoughts on why the location based industry is important and where is it going?
3. Schneidermike, you recently moderated a panel with Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare, and Alexa Andrzejewski, founder of Foodspotting. tell us about the panel?
4. A few weeks ago you wrote a few blog post on check.in and how you felt it missed the mark so to speak. Can you elaborate on that?
5. What businesses and industries do you see taking the most advantage of Location-Based services now?
6. Predict the future: do you think in one year from now, will foursquare and google latitude/places be the major players in location or will it be facebook and a slew of others being used in niche markets still have their role?
7. Should users be that concerned when it comes to privacy, security/stalking using location-based services?
8. What is your favorite location-based social network?
9. Any upcoming project for Schneidermike? How can people find you online?

Listen:
[audio:http://socialwayne.com/audio/socialwayne-com-podcast-12.mp3]


HTML5 Audio Player: [audio src="http://socialwayne.com/wp-content/audio/socialwayne-com-podcast-12.mp3"]
Length: 25:39.291 minutes

You can subscribe; to the SocialWayne.com Podcast on: iTunes; or subscribe to the podcast XML feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/socialwayne.

Posted on May 28, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Location Based Post Round-up: Geo / Location based news from the past week.

Location, Location, Location, that what was said at the end of 2009 of being the next big thing in “social media’ or marketing or just the next big thing. Has it lived up to all the hype? I would say so but I’m a little bias because of TriOut. Regardless as more brands launch location based promotions and location-based startups just “launch” the location-based services/marketing industry is truly one to watch. Starting today I’m going to post a weekly round of location based blog post from around the social web. You know I wanted to call the post “This week in Location” but I’ll let @Jason and @leolaporte hold on to the “This week in” name for now. Here are the location based post round-up for the week.

Brand Security Issues With Geo-Listings
by: @smartfinds

The importance of protecting your brand stems from local consumers performing a significant volume of searches for businesses, products and services in their local area. They look up local information through web searches and through mobile searches. As they look up this information, they get to see pictures, videos, consumer reviews about your business, products or services. If this information is not appealing to the local consumer they will avoid your business.

Location History, “Footstreams” & Aggregated Check-in Data Will Transform LBS
by: @gsterling

And while the individual location history is interesting to review, it’s the aggregated information — such as being collected by Skyhook — that will provide fascinating and valuable “real world analytics” to retailers, restaurants and numerous other types of businesses and marketers.

Where Have I Been? Get Your Answer with the Google Location History Dashboard
by: @GoogleMobile

We’re really excited to make Latitude and your location more useful to you, but we definitely understand that your privacy is important. Just as before, Google Location History is entirely opt-in only and your location history is available privately to you and nobody else. Additionally, you may be asked to periodically re-enter your password when opening any Location History page, even if you’re signed in to your Google Account already (just to make sure you’re really you). Of course, you may always delete any or all of your location history in the Manage History tab or disable Location History at any time.

DeHood: A Location-Based Social Network for Your Neighborhood
by: @fredericl

While DeHood definitely has great potential, the app currently suffers from the simple fact that it doesn’t have a lot of users yet. Given that other networks like Gowalla and FourSquare already have a lot of momentum (though not the feature set of DeHood), it will be hard for DeHood (and other companies that want to enter this space) to persuade users to switch networks and build up their social networks from scratch again.

Check-Ins, Geo-Fences, And The Future Of Privacy
by: @erickschonfeld

When it comes to geo-privacy there are two extremes. Foursquare makes you explicitly check into each place where you want to share your location. That is good for privacy—you only have yourself to blame if you broadcast your location from the strip club—but it makes using the application a bit of a chore. You have to remember to pull out your phone every time you enter a new place and look like a dork while you are checking in. It is also rude when you are at a bar or restaurant with friends and everyone (all the guys, usually) are looking down at their cell phones, but I digress.

Foursquare Nearing 1 Million Checkins Per Day
by: @Jbruin

Foursquare Co-Founder Dennis Crowley says that the 10 plus checkins per second figure was on a Wednesday night, and that the company is averaging 700,000 checkins per day. He projects to hit the 1 million mark by mid to late June.

Millions of Incorrect Listings Plague Location-Based Services
by: @fredericl

Currently, there is no single location database with perfectly accurate information that all of the different vendors can access – and that’s probably a good thing, as it allows developers to use the databases that suit their needs best. If Placecast’s data is correct, however, an error rate that ranges from 8% to 40% is simply too high for consumer products that want to guide people to the right location in the real world.

Market for Location-Based Services is Heating Up for Startups
by: @chcameron

As more tools like SimpleGeo make the incorporation of sophisticated technologies and infrastructures faster and more cost-effective for startups, the opportunities to create truly innovative location-based services will continue to grow.

From SocialWayne.com this week:
Podcast #11 – All about Location with @LouisGray on Foursquare, Google, East vs West check-ins & Facebook privacy
The value of the check in using location based services for businesses and customers. Time to measure those check-ins

Are there other posts you have read about the location-based industry the past week? Let me know in the comments.