1. Location
Geo-Social Nonsense: The Future of Location-Based Services and their Role in Mobile
Jeff Kirchick
University Specialist
@jeffreykirchick
jeff@scvngr.com
scvngr.com
2.
3. What’s this all about?
• The way we think about location is wrong
• Location as it exists now is awful
• We are wasting our time with fads
• What is happening in the LBS world
• How will we begin to think about LBS
• Most of the good things you hear are nonsense
• …but no one is really paying close attention
• …it’s my job to pay really close attention
• I kinda feel like Porter Stansberry, so that’s not a
good thing.
11. Big Partners + Big Money = Big Results…
Social LBS Users
Using Social LBS
People In This Room
Everyone Else
…Right?
12. …Wrong
November 2010 – Pew Internet Research
I went on Higher Ed Live in Feb. 2011, predicted the death of Foursquare, was criticized and called “biased,”
and then new research came out in August 2011, almost a year after initial research.
13. Even Value Exchange
(Natural vs. Unnatural Interactions)
• Fact: people are more inclined to do
something when it feels natural.
• Fact: people are more inclined to give
something when they feel they will receive
equal value in return.
• Proposition: LBS (as it exists now) has to offer
people a lot for them to really buy into the
concept.
14.
15. Social vs. Influence
• Social: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
– “Cool” Foursquare features (like the addition of
photos) ironically hurt the company
– Social services provide social utilities
• Influence: Yelp, Groupon, BunchBall, etc.
– “Influence” drives behavior
18. Later Twitter Days
“Holy #@%&^()*&!!
They got Osama!!
LET’S GO
GET DRUNK!!”
This is more influential.
19. “Cool” vs. Practical
• Social services are usually “cool” and have
practicality for an elite group of people. They
are subjectively useful; not objectively useful.
• Practical things are just…practical. You know it
when you see it because it provides real utility
to your life.
21. The Decade of Games
Social Layer Connections
Last decade
All about connections
Facebook’s Open Graph
Construction is over
Game Layer Influence
Next decade
All about influence
No set foundations
Construction has just begun (and we’ll all be involved)
27. Facebook Evolution
• Launched Facebook Places: Summer 2010
• Discontinued Facebook Places: Summer 2011
• What was the shift?
• A victory for Foursquare? Or a huge smack in
the face?
• In my words: winning the “check-in war” is like
winning the State Junior Varsity Basketball
Tournament; you’re fighting a fight that’s
going to net you a “w,” not a “W.”
28. Alright, I get it. So what is location
according to you, Jeff?
…I thought you’d never ask!
39. Consumer vs. Enterprise
• Consumer-based application
– Strength lies in the number of users
– Has no revenue model; just “value in numbers”
• Enterprise application
– Strength lies in the number of clients
– Has a revenue model
– SCVNGR aside, check out Double Dutch
44. SCVNGR at La Roche
• Purpose of using SCVNGR three-fold:
– Inform students about on-duty responsibilities
– Infuse fun into training
– Spread word about using SCVNGR on campus
58. Gowalla Evolution
Before
– Basically the same thing as Foursquare, except you
have a “passport,” leave items at places, and get
stamps for things. OK, so it was just Foursquare.
After
– After sentimental sob story, Gowalla becomes a
travel guide, thereby limiting its use, shifting its
business model, pissing off its users, and
becoming useless to the 90+% of people who
travel without wanting to suck up their data plan.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66. Shifts in “Location”
• Brightkite – Group SMS
• WHERE – bought by PayPal
• Whrrl – bought by Groupon
• Gowalla – becomes a tourism tool
• Foursquare – social recommendations
• Facebook – ditches Facebook places
• …get the picture?
67. Convention vs. Unconventional
• We think of location in a very conventional way –
Foursquare! Gowalla! SCVNGR!
• The reality is, location needs to be addressed
unconventionally
• People are adopting location for the sake of
adopting it, and comparing “LBS” tools against
each other as if they are all the same
• When all is said and done, most of these people
will have merely wasted their time
• I would go so far as to equate this to having a
MySpace profile for your school
68. Showing is Better Than Telling
• Location will become ubiquitous with
everything we do
• The more subtle the use of
location, oftentimes the better
• The “check-in” was such a
blatant, useless, non-utility-providing function
• …we can, and will, do better. Just be patient.
70. Questions?
Jeff Kirchick
University Specialist
@jeffreykirchick
jeff@scvngr.com
617-640-0225
scvngr.com
Notes de l'éditeur
Intro, Class (Seth), school, talk, etc. -# of slides
Porter Stansberry predicted the crash of the US Economy. He kind of sucks, but I feel like I am doing something similar.
People are trying to get closer to each other…without actually seeing each other face-to-face!!!
People are trying to get closer to each other…without actually seeing each other face-to-face!!!
People are trying to get closer to each other…without actually seeing each other face-to-face!!!
People are trying to get closer to each other…without actually seeing each other face-to-face!!!
People are trying to get closer to each other…without actually seeing each other face-to-face!!!
Big Partners 0:30 | 28:45 Pretty much every location-based service is getting promoted by a couple major brands at minimum. SCVNGR’s working with Coke. Foursquare’s working with Pepsi. Gowalla’s working with Disney. Whrrls working with UPS. MyTowns working with H&M and Facbeook Places is working with the GAP.
Big Money 0:20 | 29:05 And a lot of money has been poured into the space.This is a graph of the money raised by the leaders in the space and their most recent valuations. MyTown, Shopkick and Whrrl don’t have public valuations, but I did some digging and this is what I was able to ascertain.I left facebook off this graph because essentially all these lines are just blips compared to them. If you want to see it with Facebook included, it looks like this…
Ruh Oh 0:20 | 29:45So big partners + big money = big results….. Right?With all these partners and all this money, we’d expect to have something a bit more to show for it.Social LBS is still only being used by a tiny fraction of america and an even tinier fraction of the world.That’s the little blue green segment up there. And if you take out people in this room right now, it’s even smaller.So the big question is why hasn’t LBS gone mainstream yet?It’s certainly not for lack of effort, money or free advertising. We’re all just clearly all doing something slightly off. [pause]So… I’ve spent a lot of time in this presentation talking about how game dynamics can fix other peoples problems. School. Customer Acquisition. Loyalty, and I figure it might be a little bit hypocritical if I didn’t try to analyze my own space using the same methods.So what game mechanics should the LBS space be doing a better job at?
Paying with a credit card is quite natural, and relatively fast. Getting out your phone and awkwardly checking in to try to redeem some type of discount is painfully awkward and unnatural. You need equal value in return for that, so it forces LBS to offer you deals or some type of incentive. But it’s messy. But, you could pay with your phone. That could be a very quick, natural, thing to do with equal value exchange.
Things like Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, etc. were all social. And social is owned by Facebook. Every social feature that was added was a regression.Companies that create influence are much more likely to succeed, because they actually drive behavior. This is something Facebook has tried (and failed).
Checking in is decidedly social. It tells people where you are.Shopping for groceries using QR codes on a subway in South Korea is decidedly influential. It results in a transaction; it also makes your life easier.
A Tamagotchi is (debatably) “cool”; a can opener is decidedly very not cool, but also pretty practical. We might freak out without one.
There is a difference between social, and influence. Consumer and enterprise. Luxury and practical.
Appointment Dynamic: Show up at a certain time and get a reward. We see this conventionally (Farmville); we see it in real life. Progression Dynamic: We see it in video games, we see it on LinkedIn.Countdown: We see it in sports games, we see it on Groupon.Communal Gameplay: We see it everywhere.
Foursquare realized that they could not win social, and now they are moving into the realm of influence. This will unfortunately leave higher education in the dust.
WHERE already did this. Foursquare is banking on their user base to win out here. But do they really have one? Is Groupon even a good idea to partner with? Or will Foursquare’s $50MM bankroll bail them out?
WHERE already did this. Foursquare is banking on their user base to win out here. But do they really have one? Is Groupon even a good idea to partner with? Or will Foursquare’s $50MM bankroll bail them out?
WHERE already did this. Foursquare is banking on their user base to win out here. But do they really have one? Is Groupon even a good idea to partner with? Or will Foursquare’s $50MM bankroll bail them out?
Facebook decided to try the “check in” on 750 million people and those people didn’t care. As such, the check-in became an ancillary feature; it was in the background of what you do. It is a data point.
SmartRide – gets me to work every morning.
This shows me where my classes are. Practical! Useful! Natural!
This shows me where my classes are. Practical! Useful! Natural!
This shows me where my classes are. Practical! Useful! Natural!
This is potentially creepy; the winking pin makes it even creepier.That aside, some people find this useful. Are you surprised that Loopt – a San Francisco based LBS platform – is now basically a way for gay men to find each…fast?
This is potentially creepy; the winking pin makes it even creepier.That aside, some people find this useful. Are you surprised that Loopt – a San Francisco based LBS platform – is now basically a way for gay men to find each…fast?
This is potentially creepy; the winking pin makes it even creepier.That aside, some people find this useful. Are you surprised that Loopt – a San Francisco based LBS platform – is now basically a way for gay men to find each…fast?
…didn’t believe me?
QR codes could be the future. I’mOK app. College safety.
Might we see a rise in enterprise tools?
You kinda know when looking at a graph if a company is a winner. This is not replicated by any LBS player on the consumer side.
Concept for the Resident Assistance training - wanted something relatable and funSCVNGR trek part of week-long training for RAs.
Trek allowed students to explore campus in a newway. Took what would otherwise be a mundane afternoon of learning about on-duty responsibilities fun and memorable.Small but influential group of students - help spread word about using SCVNGR; more that use it, more engaged they are with campus, more valuable tool becomes
Trek allowed students to explore campus in a newway. Took what would otherwise be a mundane afternoon of learning about on-duty responsibilities fun and memorable.Small but influential group of students - help spread word about using SCVNGR; more that use it, more engaged they are with campus, more valuable tool becomes
Trek allowed students to explore campus in a newway. Took what would otherwise be a mundane afternoon of learning about on-duty responsibilities fun and memorable.Small but influential group of students - help spread word about using SCVNGR; more that use it, more engaged they are with campus, more valuable tool becomes
Trek allowed students to explore campus in a newway. Took what would otherwise be a mundane afternoon of learning about on-duty responsibilities fun and memorable.Small but influential group of students - help spread word about using SCVNGR; more that use it, more engaged they are with campus, more valuable tool becomes
Trek allowed students to explore campus in a newway. Took what would otherwise be a mundane afternoon of learning about on-duty responsibilities fun and memorable.Small but influential group of students - help spread word about using SCVNGR; more that use it, more engaged they are with campus, more valuable tool becomes
Trek allowed students to explore campus in a newway. Took what would otherwise be a mundane afternoon of learning about on-duty responsibilities fun and memorable.Small but influential group of students - help spread word about using SCVNGR; more that use it, more engaged they are with campus, more valuable tool becomes
Gowalla is in trouble.
This is what a successful graph looks like.
If people aren’t selling out, they are changing what they do. We are moving away from the days of having purely social LBS apps. They need to give us more to get even on the equal value exchange.