The first thing we think of these days when someone mentions “location-based services”, or LBS, are the mobile social platforms we’ve gotten used to “checking in” to wherever we go – Gowalla, Foursquare, Brightkite, MyTown and the like. But looking forward in the LBS market actually requires us to look back to feature phones and a GPS-less existence. According to Jason Finkelstein, the director of product and marketing at LBS solution-provider WaveMarket, we are looking at a “truly horizontal market” that can be “applied to dozens of different types of businesses”. But first, there are a number of hurdles to jump over. Sponsor Finkelstein spoke today at the South By South West festival in Austin, in a workshop entitled ” LBS 101: Geolocation On The ‘Horizon’ “, explaining that location started out with car-based GPS services before moving onto “personal navigation devices” and finally ending up in the smartphones that nearly 20% of the population carries around in their pockets. LBS 101 Right off the bat, Finkelstein argued one of the largest uses of text messaging is to find out friend and family location. Fifty-five percent of SMS messages, he said, ask some variation on the simple question of “Where are you?”. “The peer-to-peer privacy model is complicated”, he said, explaining that the solution is not simple. A federal mandate in 2000 made it so that any time someone dialed 911 from a cellular phone, the cell tower used would have to be reported. In 2005, the requirements were made more stringent. It’s those two things that became the background of the LBS market we see today. “The future, which is more or less here”, Finkelstein explained, referring to check-ins, Facebook widgets, notifications when friends are nearby, GPS-indexed local search, location-aware advertising and marketing, crowdsourced traffic systems, location-aware messaging applications and security prevention applications. Market Fragmentation and the Future of LBS “Location data is not just a dot on a map – there is a whole lot of more rich data,” Finkelstein said. Part of what LBS app developers will have to deal with in moving into the future, he said, involved handling various networks with different kinds of location information, device fragmentation and application types, whether SMS, downloadable apps or Web-based applications. “The downloadable app is not the entire universe,” he said, explaining that SMS systems might be much more accessible to the 80% of the population that do not have GPS-enabled smartphones. “For most people, downloading something is a hurdle.” To get past some of these issues, Finkelstein said, and provide LBS to both smartphones and feature phones, developers can use “Assisted GPS”, which is a “hybrid using GPS satellites and cell tower signals”, triangulation and cell ID, with varying levels of accuracy and latency. “If you want to address the mass market, you have to address all of this stuff,” said Finkelstein. “You can’t build a mass market service… really.” Between handset types, network and platform fragmentation and carrier coverage, the solution for developers is not clear. Location aggregators, such as Veriplace (a service provided by Finkelstein’s company, which he admitted as “shameless self-promotion”), are one solution for developers looking to get beyond these complicating factors. But a constant theme throughout the panel was that with all of the hype over LBS, we are still in infancy stages in the LBS market. Discuss

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In the kids book “George Saves the World by Lunchtime”, George saves the world through recycling. His four tips are reduce, repair, reuse and recycle. When Toyota decided to build Toyota Conversations Powered by Tweetmeme , they applied the same approach. The collaboration is about more than simply utilizing a social media tool to reach out to customers. It also allows Toyota to meet business objectives like reducing resources, while at the same supporting customer-friendly initiatives such as transparency and engagement. Sponsor Reduce Simply by automating the collection of content, Toyota minimizes the number of people, time and level of effort required to run a highly engaging website. No one is needed to create content, no complicated workflow and approval process – no manual push to live. The content is published for the most part by fans and nay-sayers of Toyota alike. This means Toyota staff can concentrate on curation, conversation and engagement. Reuse The entire site, from front to back, is reusing existing resources. The hardware, software and interface design is developed and delivered by Tweetmeme. The platform existed – Toyota is just tweaked existing data to deliver relevant, real-time content to the press, its customers, its employees – and let’s not forget the competition. Recycle Instead of building from scratch, Toyota is recycling an existing idea and repurposing it for its own needs. As such, the solution was most likely delivered in a quarter of the time (or less) that it would have taken Toyota to build a similar solution. And even if Toyota tried to create the experience from scratch, it most likely couldn’t replicate the Tweetmeme model as it also gained the brains, years of research and development and data management skills of Tweetmeme. Management is RELATIVELY happy as the solution is inexpensive, quick to market, and from a development perspective, generally risk free as it is a proven solution that Tweetmeme will continue to evolve. The data geeks are happy because they have a new toy to play with, while the marketing team is thrilled because they have a platform to view real-time what customers are saying, and respond accordingly. These concepts of reuse, reuse and recycle on the Web are not new , however Tweetmeme example is a solid case study that demonstrates these concepts well. Discuss

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Modular workbenches are essential for the growth of your business, particularly if you are in the manufacturing sector. This type of workbenches allows you to easily construct or arrange your production line according to the needs of your operations. With a modular bench, you do not have to worry about how to replace old workstations [...]

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