Forget Location... Now There Is Persistent Location!

If Xtify has it's way check-ins will be a thing of the past, before they even became mainstream... Xtify is ushering in the era of “persistent location,” one in which the user’s location is passively used to deliver relevant information. According to GigaOm's Ryan Kim "Xtify is on the cutting edge along with Placecast and others using geo-fences, a digitally drawn radius around a place, to create a landscape in which our movements trigger offers, coupons and messages from companies we have relationships with."

Xtify CEO Josh Rochlin says “There is going to be growing comfort with passively-derived location that will be an asset to consumers, but brands will need to figure out how to take advantage of location without becoming a nuisance,” he said. “Brands will have to decide what is the proper cadence to message users.”

It all sounds a bit like Minority Report-ish to me, and that's not necessarily a bad thing (at least from this geek's perspective). The promise of these  technologies are that they are opt-in and provide fully anonymized user data with no emails or cell phone numbers stored, and that is much more comforting to the average non technical user who's big concern to date with location based services is privacy.

Facebook Places Signs Big Retailers To Offer Deals

When social giant Facebook announced it's move into location based services it had to cause some nerves to fray at Gowolla and Foursquare, the two biggest players in the arena until Facebook joined the game. Now Facebook has partnered with 22 major brands likes Gap, H&M, Starbucks, McDonalds and the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. In fact Gap plans to run a campaign in which the first 10,000 Gap customers to sign in at their local store will receive a free pair of jeans. This is the type of game changer that will draw attention to location based services in a market that is teetering on being ready to enjoy it's benefits and dispel the detractors. It will be interesting to see if the smaller innovators are able to grow as the result of their superior technologies or if the elephant in the room will simply plow forward using it's mass and momentum. I've resisted Facebook's Places opting to stay with Foursquare, but local business is slow to embrace the technology in this small (physical) community and I fear Facebook will gain more attention simply because it is a more recognizable brand that shop keepers are much more familiar with.

Source: BBC

Where I Work In Plain English

Five months ago, almost  to the day, I started work at ScreenScape Networks a relatively young company that was in expansion mode. The previous several years of my working life had taken it's toll on me both mentally and physically and ScreenScape was an exciting new opportunity that I embraced with great enthusiasm. I was introduced to the company founder, Mark Hemphill, through a mutual friend and from the moment I began talking to Mark and the rest of the folks at ScreenScape I knew there was something special going on here.

I did my due diligence, played with a free Test Drive account, spoke to people working here, and to customers of the company around town. Mark, I'm sure, did his due diligence as well and the rest as they say is history. I have not for a moment regretted the move, and I embrace each and every day with the knowledge that something wonderful is happening here. The days fly by and our team is constantly improving upon an already incredible product, this is the most productive team that I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Don't get me wrong, I've worked with hundreds of good people, and a handful of great people, but talented people alone can not make up for bureaucracy, communication issues, questionable management policies, and other productivity zapping corporate practices... but I digress.

Recently ScreenScape had the following video produced and it does an incredible job of explaining what it is that we are so diligently working on. Check it out, and if you see the merits in what we are producing check us out... knowing that there is an extremely motivated, awesome team, behind every line of code.

ps. I write this entirely of my own volition.

Tweet

CBS Mobile & Loopt Bring Location Based Ads to Cell Phones

The New York Times is reporting this morning that CBS will announce the introduction of a new location based ad campaign customized for a person’s location and delivered to their cell phone via CBS Mobile News and CBS Mobile Sports web sites. “Mobile phone users already see ads on Web pages. But with the CBS service, instead of a more or less random banner popping up on the screen, people who have chosen to participate might see an ad from a business in the neighborhood, even one within a block or two.” The experiment is, for now, limited to two carriers that Loopt has signed deals with, Sprint Nextel and Boost Mobile. If it's an opt in service, and the result is no more ads than would normally be displayed, I really wouldn't have objections. Then again, I live in a very small market and it will probably be a very long time before this type of service makes it way here. I also don't subscribe to the privacy concerns of many... I just don't think that anyone is going to be that interested in where I am at any given time.