Saturday, February 10. 2007

Consumer LBS and Transparency

There is a debate going on within the consumer LBS community regarding privacy and transparency. In particular, if a consumer service allows one party access to the location of a second party, should that second party be notified when this location information has been provided? This could be done via SMS, or potentially some visual cue on the second parties mobile device. In principle, such a practice avoids turning safety and social applications into "stalking" services.

In 2005, South Korea, a leading market for LBS services, made this type of notification a legal requirement for consumer LBS services, although the notification mechanism was not made clear. The three major carriers in South Korea have possibly been acting in violation of this law, see article for more details. Joe Francica, Editor-in-Chief of this blog, has written previously about this arcticle here.

For the U.S. market, the CTIA LBS Working Group is addressing these kinds of questions, and will likely be making recommendations for U.S. carriers and service providers. A weaker version of the S. Korea law, the so called Location Privacy Protection Act was enacted by Congress in 2001. This law requires simply that subscribers opt into services that involve the sharing of location data.

Sunday, January 28. 2007

MoVoxx and Mobile Coupons

The latest entrant into the mobile coupon space is San Francisco startup MoVoxx. In contrast to the mobile download-based CellFire, MoVoxx is SMS-based. This has the clear advantage of a much wider addressable market, without the daunting porting investment. CellFire has recently launched a WAP-based version of it's service called "CellFire Express", which seems like the right way to address this.

A second important difference in these two service offerings is the way in which they are approaching advertising customers. CellFire is making direct relationships with local Bay Area businesses, and currently has nine customers (these are listed on their web site.) MoVoxx on the other hand is partnering with print media (such as the San Jose Mercury News), and it appears will leverage existing customer relationships held by print media partners.

With these service differentiators, MoVoxx has taken positive steps in proving out the mobile coupon space. The next move will require carrier involvement, taking advantage not only of mobility, but a second characteristic unique to the mobile environment, location. By leveraging LBS, carriers can transform the concept of putting coupons on phones from a paper saving convenience into a unique marketing opportunity.