Held at CBI offices in London 12th October 2009.
This event was VERY well attended, people were standing in the aisles which was, I hope, a good sign that a) mobile is getting a lot of attention and b) people may be starting to think about spending money again!
There was a great presentation from Kim Imbach of Skyhook Wireless (which was the highlight of the event for me). Guys at Skyhook are doing some great stuff with location using different sources like WiFi (access points), cell ID, and GPS (they are on the iPhone and provide location in Google maps). They have released an API for developers to integrate Skyhook into their apps.
The Vodafone 360 guys were there, did a demo one the location features in 360, as was Flook and Shazam to name a few.
LBS is one of those technologies that we all know (feel?) that it is going to be big but no one is sure quite how? I think it is going to be one of those things that creeps into our lives and one day we will wonder how we ever did without it!
As with a lot of mobile events that I attend the conversation turned towards business models and monetisation. Guess what? Mobile advertising is key (yawn – yeah right). This led to some heated conversations about whether the Minority Report type of location advertising would ever exist or ever be accepted by the public. I get the impression that those that know advertising and location get that this is not the way forward but are not quite sure what is. Only time will tell…..but there are some interesting ‘takes’ on location, look at Flook for an example and the new Tweetie app with its ‘nearby’ feature.