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Location based services on the rise
Advantage LBS
Spatial triggers can be set for events such as a mobile phone entering or leaving a certain zone, or when two mobile phones are within a certain pre-defined distance from each other. Parents can be notified about their child’s location; when he reaches school, comes home, or goes to play. Presence based services such as location games, dating services, friend finders. The possibilities for LBS applications are unlimited.
Applications driving this industry can be broadly classified depending on their target usage scenarios. The key drivers for these applications vary and even the technology for each of these can vary based on the exactness of geographic co-ordinates that is required. We can differentiate them as
- Commercial
Business applications mostly revolve around the concept of tracking and tracing of goods/assets. Increased needs for communication and an explosive growth of mobile personnel in organizations have accelerated the growth of 'location-aware' applications for commercial usage.
- Private/ Personalized
People that have permitted their positions to be tracked come under the purview of this category. The location or position criterion for these applications may be slightly relaxed. Location specific advertisements, SMS triggers, important landmarks around users and such other personalized scenarios to assist the user. Navigation systems for car drivers have also picked up rapidly and are used extensively in Korea, Europe and some parts of North America.
- Publicly available
E911 in North America is an excellent example of publicly available location based services. Public safety and need of user position during emergencies lead to the publicly available LBS applications.
Nature of LBS implementation - Push/Pull services
Active Services - Information Pull
A consumer wants to find the nearest ATM centre from his current location so he sends an SMS to a predefined number and gets a list of ATM centers close to his current location. Such services where a user can PULL information from a repository whenever required - is an example of this category. Location is provided only in response to a user’s demand.
Passive Services – Information Push
A person registers for a dating service, which continuously monitors the user’s location and informs him of matching profiles close to him based on his preferences. "Passive" or "Push" services are those where a user may permit to have their location requested by the service multiple times by the application or by another user. Location of the user is continuously available at all times.
Business driven location based services may fall in either of the above two categories or be a priority combination based on requirements.
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