Why Fire Eagle hasn’t convinced Rory of the wonders of LBS

Rory Cellan-Jones writes at the BBC blog dot.life about his testing of Fire Eagle. I was disappointed that he didn’t seem to get or take advantage of the control users have of their location information, but I was impressed he stated the problems he ran into and how he didn’t get LBS.

First the problems:

That’s the theory. In practice, I’ve found a couple of problems. I need to make the effort to update my location via Fire Eagle all the time - though as GPS comes to more phones that could happen automatically - and most of the time I just can’t be bothered. And when I do, I’m still not sure why I want the world to know where I am.

I’ve tried using a couple of other services attached to Fire Eagle - but just downloading and signing up has tested my patience to the limits.

I think my main problem is the lack of a network effect - until there are plenty of location-based services and plenty of people are using them, the whole idea just won’t have any mass appeal. And I’m still worried that it’s a concept which may appeal more to advertisers and technology developers than to users - there does not seem to be any real “need” waiting to be fulfilled.

He bravely twitters that he doesn’t get LBS only to be bombarded with tweeters “amazed that I didn’t get it.” He also received a tweet from Tom Coates (the Yahoo person leading the Fire Eagle charge) noting the app hadn’t really launched yet.

I take a few things away from this story, which I expect is not that unusual. First off, Fire Eagle would not be the app I’d use to promote the wonders of LBS. As I’ve noted, it’s for managing LBSs; in and of itself, it’s not an LBS. Clearly, unless you are a bit sold on LBS, Fire Eagle is perhaps not worth your time for the reasons Rory mentions. Second, there’s a sense, echoed by the Twitter responses, that acceptance of and demand for LBS is somehow genetic (or should be). That news hasn’t reached Rory or dare I say many others on the planet. The marketing machine for LBS hasn’t created the demand for some chunk of the market (yet). Finally, there’s still this lingering notion that LBS is for advertisers, not for those sharing their locations. If LBS is to be ubiquitous, that sentiment needs to be overcome.

Localism.com: “world’s most complete neighborpedia.”

Localism.com launched as a community site for real estate professionals, but now is expanding to include the public in defining local communities and collecting content about them. The discussion at Inman.com makes it sound a bit like hyperlocal news + social networking + crowdsourcing for real estate. Posts are reviewed to insure they match the the geography of relevance. Key soundbite from CEO Jonathan Washburn, of ActiveRain the company behind the site:

It is a social network based around communities. We’re trying to bring the geographic community back to the beginning—to bring people close together who are really close in proximity.

Business model?

There is a revenue model: Users can sponsor communities, at a cost ranging from $7.50 to $15 per month per community, depending on the volume of sponsored communities. There can be only one sponsor per community.

Sponsorships give more visibility to community members at the site, and allow them to post advertising links.

ActiveRain wasn’t the first or only one heading down this path; Move Inc., which owns Realtor.com, discussed a similar plan last year, potentially using ActiveRain as a partner. That didn’t play out and now ActiveRain is suing Move.

I’m a bit skeptical non-real estate folks will jump into this site when it opens to the public in August. I will however be interested in how those trying to draw the lines between neighborhoods tap into this new resource.