I guess you could call me jaded. It’s not often that a mobile application really impresses me anymore. This one did. Almotawef, which is an application for Muslim pilgrims, helps them find their relatives and groups during Hajj, walks them through the Hajj rituals and points them to the places they have to go to. I haven’t seen the app myself, but the concept is fabulous. It addresses a real consumer need and targets a specific activity. Value and utility. If I were on a pilgrimage to Mecca I would pay for this in a heartbeat. The application was developed on weNear, a new framework for location-based services.
With this morning’s housing numbers showing an 11% YoY decline in median home prices and a 9.6 month supply at the current sales rate, this deal raises some eyebrows. Mobile real estate listing company Smarter Agent recently closed a $6.2 million “oversubscribed” first round of funding. The round was led by private equity magnate Ira Lubert, who co-founded Lubert-Adler’s multi-billion dollar real estate fund, LLR Partners, Quaker Bio Ventures and Versa Capital. The funding will support the roll-out of Smarter Agent’s GPS real estate searches including a Homes for Sale application due to launch at the beginning of Spring. Smarter Agent has a service which lets people find houses for rent or sale near where they are when they make the enquiry—it launched on Sprint a year or so ago and gains subscription revenue though a monthly fee. It claims that over 25,000 people used the service over the summer and 35 percent placed calls to the agent/property owner.
That’s a nice-sized investment for the company and should help to get things moving. Right now they’re stagnating with just one carrier, Sprint Nextel (which happens to be bleeding to death right now). Integrating the apps with an ad model should work well. And with one third of users placing calls to owners/brokers there could be a really nice commission model there as well. It would make sense to push the app for free, although the carriers would never let that fly. I’ll bet that Apartments for Rent application will get some good traction with the foreclosure tidal wave upon us…
Following its February launch alongside the original N95, Nokia has now rolled out the next version of its Nokia Maps navigation software. The new application seems to center around customer-requested improvements, including a new data counter, revamped user interface, improved search capabilities, and client software capable of transferring maps ten times as quickly as the original. Nokia is also taking the remainder of 2007 to update its coverage, eventually offering over 150 countries’ worth of maps with 50 of them enabled for navigation.
Speaking this week at the Canalys Navigation Forum in Barcelona, Michael Halbherr, head of location-based services at Nokia (from the Gate5 acquisition) shared insights about their plans for updates and improvements for Nokia Maps. Launched in February of this year, the Nokia Maps mobile application and the Nokia Map Loader for PCs have each been downloaded over 1 million times. Halbherr also mentioned some juicy usage statistics. Nokia Maps has been activated by 100% of N95 users: 68% have tried Nokia Maps at least 14 times, 95% have established a GPS fix, 94% have generated packet data with maps, 44% of users have used it for actual navigation, and of those users 67% used it for driving a car, 57% for walking, 44% standing still and 7% for cycling or biking.
If you haven’t heard about the rumored Google phone (dubbed the GPhone) you either don’t work in tech or have been living in a cave. According to the WSJ Google has been in touch with phone manufacturers about the technical specifications of the GPhone. Google wants to give consumers more options and they hope multiple manufacturers will take on the job and that the phones will be offered through multiple carriers.
A Google spokesman yesterday declined to comment on a Google phone project, but noted: “We are partnering with almost all of the carriers and manufacturers to get Google search and other Google applications onto their devices and networks.”
The specs Google has come up with suggests that manufacturers include digital camera, built-in Wi-Fi, support 3G, and include GPS. If you’ve been following my commentary you’ll know that location-based services are key to Google’s revenue growth by earning higher CPMs. I don’t think they’d consider a phone without GPS.
Yeah, but she’s tracking every move I make, every step I take…she’ll be watching me. Disney Mobile has a new spot touting the virtues of their Family Finder application.
Helio just introduced Fin, a super slim 3G phone from Samsung. With Fin, Helio debuts Garmin Mobile for voice-guided navigation. The service is now available on the Ocean handset as well. Priced at $2.99 per day, Garmin Mobile can also check weather for driving conditions and find alternate routes in the event of heavy traffic. Interesting to see that there’s currently no monthly subscription option. Which is probably a smart move - how many subs in Helio’s demographic are frequent business travelers who would need a monthly plan? Despite the buzz, Helio only has 100K subscribers, so this is just another indication of how desperate Garmin is getting on the mobile front after finding little traction with the Big 4 carriers.
And with the new HelioUP service, photos and video shot with Fin’s 3 megapixel camera can be uploaded to YouTube and Flickr directly from the phone. HelioUP is GPS-enabled so users can geo-tag photos and video with location information and other metadata. Subscribers can post geo-tagged photos from their device directly to Flickr’s World Map (flickr.com/map). This is where things start to get interesting. Navigation is getting the most attention right now, but I think social LBS (including content sharing) will be the big winner.
Non-profit motorist org American Automobile Association just announced AAA Mobile for GPS-enabled phones. You’ll get turn-by-turn directions, AAA’s diamond ratings for nearby hotels and restaurants, and a geo-location feature that relays your whereabouts to AAA should you need roadside assistance. AAA Mobile is another flavor of Networks in Motion’s white-label navigation application (see VZ Navigator, etc).
Strangely, the press release mentions absolutely nothing about carrier availability. Click a bit further and you’ll find that the service currently only works on Sprint with eight phones: Samsung M500, Samsung M510, Sanyo SCP-7050, Sanyo M1, Sanyo SCP-8400, Sanyo MM-9000, Sanyo SCP-3200 and LG 550 (Fusic). According to RCR Wireless, AAA is working with another, undisclosed carrier to expand the application’s availability (what application developer isn’t?). Jeff Green, managing director of location-based technology for AAA, said that about 50% of the 29 million calls received by AAA each year come from cellular phones, providing a large potential customer base for the application. Yes, but how many of those 14.5 million calls come from eight phones on the Sprint network, Mr. Green? Sound like a lot of spin here.
I honestly like the added-value features like AAA-ratings and sending your location to an AAA roadside assistance rep. But the turn-by-turn category is growing increasingly crowded. The Sprint deck alone now offers Sprint Navigator (powered by Telenav), Telenav GPS Navigator, Garmin Mobile, GuideWorx GPS, MapQuest Find Me and Ask Mobile GPS. I don’t believe there’s that much pie to go around at this point. However, if AAA manages to effectively tap some unique distribution channel (its membership) it might see some decent results.
JupiterResearch has found an emerging opportunity for location-based applications among two distinct segments of mobile phone users. Outlined in a new report “Location-Based Services: Where Are You?,” 42 percent of parents with children under age 13 are especially interested and willing to pay for services that allow them to track their child’s location. And 26 percent of cell phone owners between the ages of 18 to 24 want mobile social networking applications based on their friends’ locations.In contrast, Jupiter reports that the use of available mobile applications to aid in more traditional navigation remains low, with less than three percent of cell phone users reporting routine use of maps or turn-by-turn directions in their travels.
“Regardless of the fact that a small number of children under the age of 13 actually have mobile phones, the number of parents who are willing to pay for tracking services is significant,” explained Julie Ask, Vice President and Research Director at JupiterResearch. “It provides a prime opportunity for mobile service providers to perfect the service, prompting parents to add their children to existing plans.”
While these figures are certainly interesting, the presentation of the data is misleading. Jupiter mentions the percentage of people who would like to use child or friend finder application in a perfect world, but then compares it to the percentage of people currently using maps or turn-by-turn navigation. This “current” number is greatly limited by capable handsets and applications in the market, market awareness, and consumer willingness to actually click the “buy” link. And be careful about how you interpret the market opportunity for the two segments mentioned - 42% of the “parents” segment might be a much smaller number than 26% of the “18-24″ segment.
GPS chipset maker SiRF Technology announced a partnership today with Intel Corporation “to help location and wireless connectivity become more mainstream in next generation mobile devices.” For the most part, this means that Intel will license positioning technology from SiRF for developing silicon used in mobile internet devices, mobile phones and handheld consumer devices. “SiRF has a vision to bring the benefits of location enabled content and applications to the mainstream mobile consumer and enterprise markets,” said Kanwar Chadha, SiRF’s founder and vice president of marketing.
Warning - if you are brave enough to read the entire press release, it’s rather vague and gives few details on specific plans for the pair. This is clearly intended for Wall Street (look who we’re working with!), although it didn’t help much today: SiRF was down nearly 10% in extended trading after the company lowered FY2007 guidance.
U.S. Cellular, the nation’s sixth-largest wireless carrier with six million subscribers, introduced its “Your Navigator” service today. The turn-by-turn navigation service is powered by Networks In Motion (NIM), an Aliso Viejo-based LBS developer. If the app looks familiar, that’s because NIM also powers VZ Navigator on Verizon. The company also does a white-label version for Alltel. The service is available for $9.99 per month or $2.99 per day, and works with the Kyocera 312, LG 245 and Motorola V3M.
There’s nothing groundbreaking about the service, but I’m glad to see them following the VZ Navigator pricing model with a $2.99 daily rate. This fits the usage pattern of most navigation users - they might purchase the service a couple of times a month on a business trip or vacation. Most people never venture far from their familiar home-to-work/school route. Why would they pay a monthly fee?
With this morning’s housing numbers showing an 11% YoY decline in median home prices and a 9.6 month supply at the current sales rate, this deal raises some eyebrows. Mobile real estate listing company 
Following its February launch alongside the original N95, Nokia has now rolled out the next version of its 
If you haven’t heard about the rumored Google phone (dubbed the GPhone) you either don’t work in tech or have been living in a cave. According to the 
JupiterResearch has found an emerging opportunity for location-based applications among two distinct segments of mobile phone users. Outlined in a new report “
