Friday, June 12. 2009

Using Foursquare to Track InternetWeek Week Visitors

Sam Lessin (Drop.io) crunched data collected from some 100 contacts based on their "check ins" in the mobile social network Foursqaure during the weeklong event in NYC last month.

Lessin trawled through the data to find what time people checked into coffee shops in the morning (and whether they were doing this earlier or later on a given day), how much people "lost steam" over the course of a party- and conference-filled week, and how much the most popular gatherings actually matched up to the Internet Week New York official schedule. As it turns out, the hottest parties were impromptu, unofficial gatherings at the Standard Hotel and, um, Sing Sing Karaoke.

How might someone use this data to plan for, or react to conference audiences or other groups that might be "tracked?"

- C|net
- Lessin's report

Tuesday, June 9. 2009

TomTom to Team with Apple; Stock Jumps 17%

After some tough months I'm sure the folks at TomTom were pleased with the market response to the announcement made yesterday at Apple World Wide Developer Conference. For now, TomTom is the only nav developer to partner with Apple. The first app, and a car kit for the iPhone, is slated for release this summer, when further details and pricing will be shared. One analyst suggested a $50 price point, about the same level as TomTom's introductory hardware offering, though this is far above the price of most apps in the AppStore.

- Wall Street Journal

Tuesday, March 10. 2009

Sybase's LBS SMS App

NetworkWorld is reporting that "Sybase has announced two new mobile services based on SMS messaging, one for phone users to get turn-by-turn directions, another for vendors to insert ads or promotions at the bottom of the message blocks." Called the SMS Locator Service, the technology is available to clients using the Sybase mBanking 365 service. A user can enter an address which then relies on ESRI technology to geocode the location.

Monday, March 9. 2009

Phone Tracking Services Push Liability to Users

Australia has laws regarding tracking people via cell phones without permission:

Under the Surveillance Devices Act, anyone caught using tracking devices or spy cameras without consent faces a maximum penalty of two years' jail and a $26,429 fine.

That does not mean that private investigators are taking responsibility when selling such services. In fact, many disavows themselves of liability, simply telling users to be sure they are using it for legal purposes. A company called Spousebusters, which per its name sells services to those who want to track spouses and partners does just that.

- The Age

Thursday, February 12. 2009

TomTom Map Share Feedback Even Surprises Tele Atlas

This week, Tele Atlas (TA) announced the first release of their global street network that is augmented with data from TomTom Map Share, a service offered to users of TomTom portable navigation devices (PND) that allows them to independently report a variety of road network changes including impedences, new signage, etc. The feedback is sent to TA, a TomTom company, but as a consequence of collecting so much additional data, TA recognized that it was also capturing new road geometry not previously mapped.

Users of TomTom PNDs have the option of providing feedback in a few different ways. One is to manually indicate road blockages, for example, but another is to share certain bits of data such as speed and position. As it turns out,TomTom users were leaving their PNDs on even in areas where there was sparse or no road coverage such as certain regions of Eastern Europe. This feedback made it's way to TA database managers that are recognizing that new road segments were being added to the community contributed data. This new information allows the company to selectively dispatch crews to verify new road geometry and perhaps identify pockets of new users for additional marketing and advertising.

I spoke to Mr. Arnout Desmet while attending the Map World Forum conference in Hyderbad. Directions just recently interviewed Mr. Desmet when it was announced that TA had signed a agreement with the Survey of India (SOI) to incorporate SOI data into the TA road database. He also informed me about TA's historical speed profiles which are now being incorporated into traffic information. TA began collecting speed information in 2006 and now has a database of historical profiles in 5 minute increments for various times of day and now over months of time. Essentially, TomTom users are acting as probes on the street network collecting a vast amount of data that now equals twice the entire road network of Europe every 24 hours according to Mr. Desmet. He believes this is a unique service that TomTom provides to users.

Field Service Management ROI Numbers

People are always asking us for the size of certain markets. Today at the Map World Forum, Prakash Iyer of Trimble offered these numbers for the Field Services Management (FSM) market based on an Aberdeen Research report, which he said was conducted in 2007. [Directions Magazine published results of a 2006 FSM report from Aberdeen)

FSM is predicted b to be $1.7 B by 2012

Market Drivers – better service; constant cost pressure; increased productivity; vehicle and driver safety; Sarbannes-Oxley compliance

Typical ROI

12% increase in service profitability
13% increase in vehicle utilization
15% reduction in average travel time per job
10% decrease in overtime pay
28% increase in driver compliance