Foursquare, of course, was only a stepping stone. It was revolutionary for a minute. It was fun, neat, and a little useful. Now it is time for it to be productive and essential. Foursquare and other location aware services have reached their peak, crawled back up the trough, and now must become intelligent and useful with our enlightened understanding of them. The goal in all of these articles is to combine the communication, location, purchases, and deals available through many types of LBS. This is an ideal goal, and one I believe can be reached.
In order to combine all four of these services people must be shown how much benefit they are actually receiving. If people don't think they will gain anything from the service they will never use it. But if people realize that the place where they buy coffee could start offering better food to gain more of their money and loyalty to their food then I believe they would be in. The biggest gain for businesses would be better targeted rewards and deals. Companies could eliminate redundant savings that don't really bring them any more sales than without the deals.
The overall idea of finally piecing together the full conversation people have with corporations everyday is brilliant. Consumers send messages beyond simply the verbal when the buy and don't buy products or travel to other retailers. If all the messages sent directly, indirectly, or subconsciously can be pooled together I believe everyone involved would gain. One obstacle I see remaining is the open sharing of consumer activity with separate corporations like DD and Starbucks. I think that both companies should be disclosed or able to purchase the same information to keep competition fair, and thus advantageous for the consumer.
Overall these articles were really interesting to read, I always enjoy something that presents an opinion on how things will be in the future. I would give these readings a 10/10. Can't wait for this class.
What will it take to get all four of these activities into one service? Buyouts, internal development, cooperation?
Hey Charlie,
ReplyDeleteI too am really looking forward to class on Tuesday--mostly because I agree with the first paragraph of your blog and think that LBS need to reach the next level. I may be living under a rock (quite possible between work and school), but I also think there is a general unawareness of LBS and which ones stand out from the rest among the post-college age crowd. I do think that consumers of our generations can be extremely brand-loyal, and LBS might be a great way to learn about purchasing trends and techniques to hold onto that loyalty. However, I still think there needs to be better communication to the general public about these services and how they can be of value, both to the purchasers and the sellers.
Charlie I would agree with you,
ReplyDeleteI have heard a lot in the past 6 months about LBS and the various platforms like foursquare, groupon and a host of other tools, but thats been that. I am one of the many who has yet to really see beyond the hype and actually become a subscriber to a particular LBS like you said I am waiting for these products to become an intelligent and useful tool, but even more so I am waiting for their integration. Right now I feel there are so many tools and services, each with their pros and cons and specific areas of expertise, but they are so fragmented and disconnected from the rest of my online activity that I have yet to take the plunge. Another issue preventing me from becoming an active LBS user is that I don't really use my cell phone for anything more than its purpose as a phone. For me to become a user and to see the success of these Location Based Services as a whole I think the tools will need to be consolidated and then more of a user friendly application on all phones, not just the iphones and droids of the world.
I think that buyouts are going to be what causes these activities into one service. At this point I think there are so many different services that do these activities separately that it would be easier to combine a few of them than to start a new one that does all the activities. Something that i am hesitant about, and discus in my blog, is what the benefits are to the consumers. In the example about Starbucks and DD I do not see the benefit to me if I get my breakfast sandwich at Starbucks with my coffee, maybe a small benefit of not having to wait in two lines to get me stuff. It doesn't seem worth it to me. Also if all the companies have access to the information I feel like the playing field doesn't change, it benefits all of them equally. What are your thought?
ReplyDeleteRory,
ReplyDeleteI think that open information would change the filed based upon each company's competency at advertising and targeting people. Different ads would affect different people and separate true customers of each brand from the others.