Location-Aware Mobile Presence Serivce (LAMPS): The Next BIG Thing?
Short Messaging Service (SMS) is still the current killer application of the mobile telephony world. This is especially true for countries like the Philippines with over 1.5 billion SMS messages sent per day. Now that is what I call volume. However, network operators are now trying for find new products and services for the mobile user.
3G is a network technology touted as the next big thing. However, 3G simply provides additional network capacity to allow for new services to be introduced. It is now a challenge for mobile network operators to find these applications. In the US, Location-based Services (LBS) has been a popular mobile buzzword for quite sometime. However, it does not contribute significantly to mobile revenues yet. The major problems with current LBS offerings is either application is not that compelling or too hard to use.
I came across this interesting new service called Loopt from TechCrunch. Here are some details from Techcrunch:
Mobile presence application Loopt has launched its service tonight. Loopt uses GPS and related data to display the location of a user’s friends along with their presence status (available, away, etc) on maps and lists. Users will be able to request alerts when friends are within a certain distance, send messages to groups of friends within a certain distance and soon will be able to tag and blog physical locations in a way that’s accessible to friends through Loopt. The service is initially available only to Boost Mobile customers.
This looks pretty interesting because it uses the IM-style presence to distribute location-based information. I feel to make this produce even more compelling would be to use on-net location information instead of depending on a GPS device that may not exist in current mobile phones. Ok ok. This may not be new marrying IMPS and LBS. But, this looks like a pretty polished solution. I have a few ideas on how to make it better. But this technology definitely has a future: Location-aware Mobile Presence Service (LAMPS).
