Toronto, (Ontario) -
Your wireless phone is an extension of your hand. It gives you directions while allowing you to check email, play games, make phone calls and send text messages. If that wasn’t enough, it now displays local traffic and weather reports. You can now hit a key to access a database containing customer's purchasing information. You can determine other customers within several miles of your location, and even send the information to your receptionist to set up a meeting.
At the base of all this push and pull of information is your handset, which stores your personal profile information, displays the directions to a nearby restaurant and could even ask if you want a table reserved for dinner.
Wireless applications that rely on location-based technology are all the rave in Japan, and with the arrival of more accurate features they have begun their descent on North America. Applications will quickly transcend emergency roadside assistance, sales force automation, traffic map information, location-sensitive billing and advertising.
The Strategis Group predicts revenues from location-based wireless services in North America will explode from less than $30 million this year to billions by 2010 -- more than one-hundred fold.
Wireless carriers are looking to these applications to differentiate their offerings and increase revenues from existing subscribers. Many in the industry expect wireless carriers to profit substantially from advertising as the wireless device becomes the ultimate mass-marketing tool.
Cellflare http://www.cellflare.com has cashed in on the technological wildfire. The versatility in features while utilizing LBS technology is endless. Your phone does everything it always did, and more. For example, Cellflare’s GeoFence feature boasts setting a perimeter around an address or postal code and getting an email notification once the boundary has been penetrated.
North American teens love LBS applications for the friend to friend features. Not surprising with a Neilson poll saying over 37% of US teens have a sophisticated data package on their mobile device. Adults love them because of the strict safety implications. Businesses see increases in efficiency and revenue under the direct aid of LBS.
The bottom line: Locations-based technology has hit the mainstream running, and as more developments are made, all we can do is hang on for the ride.
