Some really good LBS white papers

I should have noticed this earlier, but better late than never, I guess! TruePosition has a great Location Resource Center, which contains some recently-written white papers on why LBS uptake has been disappointing, from both operators' & consumers' points of view. You have to provide some information (name, email, etc) before you can download them, but it's quite worthwhile. =) The following were especially useful:

Wireless Location on Target?: a research study by BWCS Research, London (May 2004)

"The most common barrier to the growth of location services cited by the operators was the lack of a proven business case for them. This was followed by inadequate performance of the currently-installed technology (for the most part Cell-ID and Enhanced Cell-ID), and lack of attractive applications. However, consumers said the main reason they did not use location services more was that they were unaware that they existed. Only 3% of our respondents claimed to have used a location based service, and around half of this very small number were dissatisfied with the services they used."

It just goes to show that even if you think something's gone wrong for one reason or another, your customers will still have a completely different point of view! The low consumer awareness of LBS (thus leading to its subsequent flop) illustrates the need for one thing: better marketing!

The Location-Based Services Renaissance: A New Formula for Success (February 2005)

"In 2000, analysts predicted that location based services (LBS) would generate $81 billion USD in revenues by the end of 2004. But as operators know too well, reality has fallen far short of these original predictions. How can operators turn hype into bottomline impact? To succeed in LBS, operators need to close the gap between current applications and customer needs."

In the 'Formula for LBS success' diagram, at first glance I thought one of the circles said 'interactive marketing', but then I realised it was actually 'instructive marketing'. I guess I'm just a big interactive marketing buff. =) In addition to what's already there, I thought perhaps they should also have included 'Permission marketing' as one of the key factors for success? Overall, it's more descriptive than prescriptive, but I guess they're trying to sell you their services after all, not give it away for free!