Between Brackets

Last week (or was it the week before that?) I got an update alert for Nokia Maps. Just in time as my trial days for the Nokia Maps version pre-installed on my N86 MP8 were almost counted.

I had to free some space on my c: drive (did you know your Nokia S60 has c:, d: etc drives? I did but it still feels bizar to read that in an error message intended for the end-user) which wasn’t as easy as expected. But of course eventually it succeeded.

It is quite stunning what you get for free:

• The user interface is slick and smooth.
• There’re built-in Lonely Planet guides, as well as
• Michelin Restaurant guides.
• Several views (2d, 3d…)

Hard times ahead for Garmin, TomTom and the likes…

You can now find a location on your desktop Google Maps and send the information as a link to your mobile phone, mocoNews reports. You can see the Send option when you click a marker on the map.

Unfortunately only if you’re on a US carrier (bring this to Belgium/Europe please!).

Question that crossed my mind is why they did not add a ’send to Twitter’ option in this Twittter era.

Google makes it extremely easy for everyone else to find you. All you need to do is make sure you’re taken up on their maps.

If you look for ‘Between Brackets’ on your mobile Google Maps application you’ll see:

Search

find

position

info

Here’s an example of a food chain:

And here’s another food chain, notice the ‘unverified’ next to some of their outlets’ information. This is something you must avoid (here’s how to) at all cost, because the customer might not trust the information and this might result in a missed transaction opportunity.

It is important that all you channels are coordinated and managed well (you don’t want other information on the mobile maps than you have on you website etc).

If you can include a phone number in your outlets detail information make sure you do, because then the user can call it with one click of the button.

Note that if you look for ‘Between Brackets’ outside Belgium -say in Spain or the US- on google maps it will not show us as the first hit, which is logical, I guess (we don’t have that many offices yet).

Now, if you need some help with your MEO (Map Engine Optimization) don’t hesitate contacting us, we’ll be happy to assist you even if you’re outside of Belgium

Mobile phones are ideal allowing consumers to locate the nearest store for a drink or a bite quickly. What are your options to have the consumer choose your brand/store for her drink or snack?

Introduction

A concept that exists for quite some time on the internet is the store locator. Typically, a store locator allows a consumer to find a store nearby based on post code, address, etc. Mobile phones offer the additional possibility to locate a store via GPS software (Route66, Tom Tom), via a location-aware application (Google/Yahoo Maps), or via a (mobile) website/installable application offered by the store or brand. What direction should you choose ? Let’s first have a quick look at the options.

Downloadable store locator

You provide consumers an option to download an application to their mobile phones that allows them to locate your nearest store. This is an interesting option provided enough advantages can be publicized to your consumers to have them actually download the application. Important advantage is that your brand will be on the consumer phone, and that you can provide the most features by utilizing the phones capabilities to locate itself (GPS, WiFi, or on-line services such as Fire Eagle). The biggest difficulties are that you need to provide a really attractive offer (‘what’s in it for me?’) to motivate consumers to downloading, and that you need to create sufficient publicity via different (other) channels in order for consumer to know that this exists. Second, you need to handle both the plethora of different mobile phones (or limit the phones you support) each requiring different software, and the reluctance of consumers to download and install software on their phones. You probably need to include some customer service as well.
To give you an idea of a ‘on-phone’ store locator, you can find a sample downloadable store locator for Symbian Smartphones here

Web-based store locator

You can offer a store locator via the web, optimized for use on a mobile phone. Although growing fiercely these days, the limited spread of mobile web access and expensive data plans are still disadvantages of this option. A functionality problem that you have is that you need to ask people to enter their current location in the form of a postcode or something as there is no location-awareness in mobile websites (yet).
Advantages are that you can provide the most up-to-date store information and include extra deals in the store locator website in order to attract people, and also that the costs to launch such a mobile store locator are limited, since a web version is most probably already available.

Search on a map

A third approach is to make sure your store information exists in important mobile location-based search engine(s), or alternatively you provide location data (‘place-of-interest or POI’) for people to add to their GPS devices. For example, when consumers use Google Maps mobile, it offers both positioning and navigation functionality (directions, address, etc.) out of the box, while allowing to search for stores/brands, restaurant types. A disadvantage is that you have less opportunity for branding as you need to stick to their display and interaction formats, and that you have less freedom to provide extra incentives to the consumer. Besides that, you need to be aware that you appear on the same maps as your competitors.

User Generated Content counts

Be aware that nowadays everyone can write reviews about your store and that they will appear in –for instance- Google Maps when people look for a restaurant/store to go to.

Here’s an example:

Conclusion

To decide on what approach to take depends on what you want to achieve and what your budget is. The mobile phone is getting increasingly connected and people are increasingly looking for information based on where they are. So you need to be there in order to be found.
It is not about selecting maps presence, a mobile web solution or a branded application. It is better to define an integrated approach mixing elements from different categories: make sure people can have their favorite brand (yours!) in their pocket by offering downloadable apps, see to it that you also have an online mobile presence, and make sure you appear on Google Maps and Yahoo Maps (doing follow-up on the reviews people write about you).

Yahoo’s Fire Eagle service is definitely an interesting service especially now that they opened up their API. FireEagle allows you to store your current location centrally, and share it with all kinds of applications based on permissions. They have a very elaborate privacy model with very clear rules on how your location is shared between applications. As more and more applications will integrate with FireEagle, there will definitely be some apps that you want to add to your mobile.

But as the number of location-aware apps on your mobile increases, could the plethora of location-based services, the “where are u?” applications, the “when nearby, offer a free cocktail” widgets, cause that one starts to inadvertently share his location ?

Take the following scenario: you are using Fire Eagle on your mobile phone with GPS together with some social service such as Brightkite. You use the service to meet with friends for a coffee, and switch of the app once you have arrived at the bar. When leaving, your next stop is that interview for a new position and in order to navigate to the company, you switch on the navigation program on your mobile.

Now the question is: will Fire Eagle wake-up in the background and send your position to the applications you have allowed it to share your position with without you even knowing ? (Answer: no). Will some other mobile application do that in the future ? Maybe, maybe not. The point is, although all location-based services based on services like Fire Eagle will no doubt offer a lot of extra value to you on your mobile, it will become increasingly difficult to know if you are not sharing your location by accident. Combined with event-triggered applications (“if my friend is within x meters send me an alert”) you might have been spotted in all kinds of places without you even knowing you gave it away yourself.

It is clear that Fire Eagle made a very good start at sharing your location while allowing you to keep control of your location-privacy, but there will be a lot of potential problems to sort out when all those apps start interacting and responding to your whereabouts.

Plazes just announced that they have been bought by Nokia. This appears to be a smart move by Nokia, as they can now integrate user-recommended location information to their Maps via Ovi, giving their maps even more meaning (‘See what others have to say about this destination’, ‘Friend recommended places on your route’).

The American anti-trust authorities gave their go-ahead some time ago, now the European anti-trust authorities also gave their approval.

Thus emerges -if and when TomTom finally takes over Tele Atlas- a giant in the SatNav industry.

Nelie Kroes said that this industry is very important for the consumers and that she is convinced -after the thorough investigation of the anti-trust authorities- that the merger will not impede innovation, nor competition.

Let’s hope she’s right

(more on this in dutch)

We’ve just launched the beta version of Morzu.com. A Mobile Social Planner: helping you and your friends and families to pick a date and location to meet.

Though there are a lot of web sites that help you do this, we’re focusing on the mobile side of it: SMS alerts, possibility to vote and decide on your mobile, a mobile J2ME client with which you can follow-up your plans and create new ones.

We intend to expand it with all sorts of handy features in the coming weeks. If you want to give us feedback, or you have a good idea for us to put in Morzu.com don’t hesitate dropping us a note!

You could look at satellite from Belgium on Google Maps a while ago. In a first update a couple of months ago Google Maps’ satellite photos of Antwerp were updated and as of then detailed images are available.

And just recently the people at Google improved the geocoding capabilities: now you can also look up streets in Belgium.

Of course you could already do this using several other services, but a big advantage of Google is that it has a very simple API that allows you to use maps in your own applications.

Here’s an example: Groenplaats, Antwerp, Belgium.

More than two years ago a company called Skyhook Wireless was founded and they started working on a software-only solution for location determination through Wi-Fi, which they call Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS).

They have a database of Wi-Fi access points and their geographical location, which is updated regularly.  On your device you need to install their WPS client (with or without the database), which then matches signals received from Wi-Fi access points to the location in the database.

One of the advantages of the technology is that you don’t need a line of sight.  GPS devices need a line of sight to the Satellite they’re connecting to, due to the weak signal, which makes them quite useless for in-door usage.  Another advantage is that many devices already have Wi-Fi on-board.  Virtually every new laptop sold today has Wi-Fi capability, the PlayStation Portable has Wi-Fi, many mobile phones have Wi-Fi.

One of the disadvantages is that you need quite some Wi-Fi coverage for it to be useful on the move, which makes it less useful (or at least much less accurate) outside the city.  Have a look if you have coverage yet (I unfortunately don’t)

However, combining both technologies could be interesting: your devices uses GPS outdoors, and when you enter the building the device switches to WPS. Or should we wait for Galileo?

Loki uses this technology to pinpoint your location and tell your friends where you are, or help you find places, or even as a virtual GPS.

Or maybe we just wait for the GPS receivers to become more sensitive, according to an article on engadget on the subject we’re not very far away from this anymore.