Thursday, May 13, 2010

Contextual Discovery: The Next Generation of Location-Based Services

This post is part of the Who's @ Google I/O, a series of blog posts that give a closer look at developers who'll be speaking or demoing at Google I/O. This guest post is written by Aloqa’s Head of Client Development Matthias Schicker who will be demoing as part of the Developer Sandbox.

In the last few years, the mobile industry has overcome several infrastructure hurdles that location-based services (LBS) have historically faced -- cheap, small GPS receivers have become ubiquitous, CellID / Wifi positioning has become available on platforms like Android and iPhone, and some carriers have even started to make location information available. Not surprisingly, a wave of LBSs has been unleashed in the market. Yet LBS has still not lived up to its much vaunted promise.

The reason, we believe, is that most location services are still "reactive" -- they treat the phone like a PC. The user is required to launch an application that returns information based on the user's location. While these "finder" services are certainly useful, with Aloqa, we believe we are striking at the core of three things that are fundamentally wrong with mobile LBS today:

1. Mobile phones shouldn't have to be used as browsers. A phone is an interrupt-based device that is intended to alert you - ring when someone calls or buzz when an SMS comes in. It should "proactively notify" you, as obtrusively or unobtrusively as you'd like, of content, people, and places in your surroundings. So you never miss an opportunity to socialize, play, work, shop, watch a show, or just grab a coffee with a friend.

2. Location is only one part of a user's current "context". Historically, "location" has been used a little too simplistically by mobile apps. The canonical LBS example is to walk by a Starbucks and get a coupon sent to your phone. Even ignoring the fact that Starbucks doesn't even have coupons, if all we got all day from mobile apps is aggressive ads of various kinds, of course we would hate "LBS" too.

Location is just one component of a user's context. Who the user is, what they like, the time of day, their social graph - these are all important inputs to context as well. Your phone can be trained in a much smarter way to know you and therefore is a perfect device to give you "Context Based Services".

3. Point applications are good but it's getting beaten to death by a thousand apps. Restaurants, toilets, bars, music, events, even friend finders - why have separate apps for them? This information should just be available to users at their fingertips and at once, and without having to launch individual applications and type into them.

Aloqa is a mobile service that proactively notifies you of a variety of interesting opportunities around you: places, events, bargains, friends and activities. A kind of universal "context based inbox" for all the world's location relevant content and services.
  • Instead of having to search, you can just look at your phone and see your local hotspots, events of interest, and recommended bargains.
  • Users can customize Aloqa and decide which Aloqa "channels" they want from our "channel store".
  • Using our API, publishers can create a channel and use our universal inbox for context relevant notifications, be it for biking trails, or popular bars where Pittsburgh Steelers fans congregate.

If you have an Android phone, you can download Aloqa through the Android Market or scan this QR code to the left. To try our dev tools, go to http://dev.aloqa.com. We’d love to hear your feedback, and if you’re going to I/O, be sure to stop by the Developer Sandbox to see our demo!

posted by Matthias Schicker, Head of Client Development at Aloqa

12 comments:

  1. The Aloqa API in effect allows brands to personalize real time messages to users on the go... notifying someone their favorite Nike shoes are on sale at the store close to them, or that a last.fm concert they will probably like is playing this weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds like they have understood the problem. But it also sounds as if they believe Aloqua is a solution. But I have to start Aloqua and look at it proactively to find something near to me. Therefor Aloqua also isn't the solution to the bring you the right LBS.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Janusz - good point.

    In fact, Aloqa can run in the background and (like email) notify you of new content / messages you are subscribed to. Additionally, our SDK allows:
    - device makers can embed the experience into native applications on the device and
    - applications that want to be location enabled can embed Aloqa as a "tab" on their app to complement their core experience. For example see: http://www.payback.de/app (biggest German Loyalty Card Program)

    For more info please write to us, info@aloqa.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks Janusz - good point.

    In fact, Aloqa can run in the background and (like email) notify you of new content / messages you are subscribed to. Additionally, our SDK allows:
    - device makers to embed the experience into native applications on the device and
    - applications that want to be location enabled to embed Aloqa as a "tab" on their app to complement their core experience. For example see: http://www.payback.de/app (biggest German Loyalty Card Program)

    ReplyDelete
  5. @Janusz: On Android Aloqa runs in the background and you'll be notified about updates of selected channels on the go. That's a first step towards "proactively notifications"

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sorry I just now realised how the Aloqua configuration screen works. Looks great have to have a peek into the API

    ReplyDelete
  7. Just watched the video on your website and loved it!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sounds interesting, can you enable it for all markets? (I can't get it from Austrlia)

    ReplyDelete
  9. @Jim, thanks!

    @Salmonmoose, its available in US, UK, Canada, Austria, Hong Kong for now. China very soon. Entering a new country for us is just a matter of the right content partnerships with contextual content providers. Know anyone interested? :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sorry forgot one big country Aloqa is also available in already - Germany! :) So 6 countries (US, Germany, UK, Canada, Austria, Hong Kong under the brand Yiyi), going to 7 (China) soon.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Looks like a great app and a step in the right direction for LBS.

    But, why the hell would I want to know where Steeler fans congregate? (Go Ravens!)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi Users,

    could you tell me how much battery the app consumes while running in the background?

    Need it cause also thinking about LBS services (for a university project) and if you need this proactivity, it will somehow always have to run in the background, which might be energy consuming...

    what are your experiences?

    thanks

    ReplyDelete