Have you ever wondered where you could find a great happy-hour bar recommended by your closest friends, or how far away you are from the nearest hotel and their website, or the nearest Latin American restaurant while you're on vacation? Location-based services allow you to access this information even when you are miles away from home. These services have a magnitude of uses in social networking, and they are largely accessible through mobile device networks. They use information on the geographical position of a mobile device and enable the user to find the nearest business or service. In addition, the combination of mobile apps and location-based services allows marketers to reach out to their customers to send them more targeted content.

Not only do location-based services help the consumer, but they also help advertise the company through social media networks. Stating location is no longer just a form of showing the public what you have seen and where you have been. It is like a free advertisement or commercial for people that view that picture (instagram) or status (Facebook). It has created an extra column in the marketing aspect of the business both for future consumers as well as systems that try to adapt to the users preferences.

Applications such as Foursquare, Wikitude, and Yelp are widely used by many people, but the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) community is still in search for the "killer app" that will become so widely used in society that GIS will be available everywhere at all times and thus become part of the mainstream IT. There are so many applications that to find the IT app, it must be able to configure most of our wants and necessities. Finding cheap gas while giving comments on that restaurant to celebrate one's birthday party seems a bit far fetched, but as we have seen anything is possible in this new social media ran world.

The markets for location-based services are increasing due to the fact that it's such a useful tool, but many people are still concerned about privacy issues. The younger social users have adopted these platforms without hesitation, but enterprises still remain cautious over the adoption of mobile. This will soon change with the increasing amounts of smartphone users, downloaded mobile apps, and the enhancement of hybrid positioning technologies.

Developers are constantly creating new applications and existing companies are creating new and interesting ways to use location-based applications. There is a lot of small competitors out there, and maybe if you combine all those smaller niches from those competitors, there may be a bigger market than the most popular apps.

The future of digital business depends on many factors.

Everyone has a family member or has a friend who has a smartphone that has been used to obtain information about products, services, and places they can visit. Location-based services are used by 74% of smartphone owners, and they are based on the GPS system on users' mobile phones (book). There are different types of location-based services, but they all tie into some type of advertising to allow consumers to explore unchartered territory or get coupons to their favorite store. This is helpful for both the consumer and the business. Some mashups are more popular than others, but the Geographical Information Systems community still has not found the one application that can do it all and that will be so useful that it will be used by all smartphone users. The implications for various markets, competitors and the future of digital business are discussed in detail to further explain how location-based services have become the economic foundation for mobile commerce.

Location-Based Services Types
The three main types of location-based services are geosocial, geoinformation, and geoadvertising applications, which are commonly used by consumers to gather more information and help them make a decision on where they want to eat, what places they want to visit, and what they want to buy.

Geosocial

The Foursquare mobile application allows users to find great places on the go, get money-saving specials and rewards, see where friends like to go, and check-in and share the various locations they go to.

Geoinformation

Wikitude is an application that allows users to obtain information about different locations just by holding up their smartphone cameras and engaging them with their local surroundings. Users can explore places in augmented reality, browse more than 100 million places and interactive content from thousands of content providers or so called "Worlds", search for specific places such as "Spanish restaurants". etc. The application also allows you to find events, tweets, Wikipedia articles and find mobile coupon, deals, discounts for stores and shops near you.

Geoadvertising

All of these location-based mobile apps have one thing in common. They can all be useful for companies to advertise and market their products and services. Even though Foursquare and Wikitude are considered geosocial and geoinformation applications respectively, they are both in essence helping companies by advertising their products in services. For example, a user could have a friend who checked-in at a new bar and comments on how delicious the pomegranate martinis are. The user would then be enticed to go to that bar to try it out. With Wikitude, you can check how far away you are from a certain hotel, restaurant etc just by holding up your camera to your surroundings, so that is a form of advertising as well. Yelp is also location-based mobile application that helps people find great local businesses like dentists, restaurants, and hair stylists, in essence advertising these great places with the help of reviews from fellow Yelpers. The recommendations that are supplied by reviewers is an excellent use of advertising what the consumers like about the place of business and what foods to try. The only downside of having businesses associate with Yelp is if they receive many bad reviews, then the system would work against them in a negative way. Yelp makes money by selling ads to local businesses. Users can narrow their searches by location, distance, price and what's open now. Consumers can also find great deals that are offered by their favorite local businesses. They can check-in and share on Facebook and Twitter. They can make reservations on OpenTable without leaving the Yelp app. They can also look up addresses and phone numbers for thousands of businesses, then call or map them from their iPhone or Android phone. Yelp does augmented reality with Monocle. Overlay business information onto the world around you.

Location puts mobile advertising on the map, literally. The ability to identify a user's location and send relevant and contextualized ads in real-time to users who are in close proximity of the merchant is a game-changing feature to the world of advertising. Merchants are able to find out when the consumers are nearby, since their GPS-enabled smartphones report the locations back to Google and Apple. For example, Kiehl Stores, a cosmetics retailer, sends sales offers and coupons to customers who come within 100 yards of their store (book). This is what is called geofencing. Another example is that users receive messages from their smartphone app that highlights a particular offer or a reminder to stop by whenever they cross a Starbucks geofence. This type of messaging is more useful for a company and more applicable to users than push notifications, since push notifications alert you of new deals even when users don't have the application open and could become a little annoying (http://www.forbes.com/sites/capitalonespark/2013/03/11/get-more-from-mobile-with-location-based-services/).

Many companies such as Dunkin Donuts, Amazon, and Best Buy use Airpush to advertise their deals to consumers who are interested. Airpush uses HyperTarget to target users based on their download history on their mobile applications. This is a great way to do this because its based on a user's interests and behaviors and makes it more relevant to them. The advertisers can choose from a large variety of ad formats, including industry standards as well as proprietary ones such as Push Ads, Icon Ads, and Dialog Ads. In-App Banner Ads are a staple of mobile advertising and combined with Airpush's advanced ad types, enable advertisers to reach customers at virtually every stage of their mobile lives. Airpush also uses open APIs to allow advanced advertisers such as agencies, brands and resellers to deeply integrate Airpush's functionality into the tools and platforms they use every day. Integrate campaign, conversion and reporting data into third-party systems, and even integrate Real-Time Bidding with our advanced RTB API. Airpush provides the deepest integration of any major mobile ad network (http://www.airpush.com/#adformats).

A person is almost always more likely to take advantage of special offers, discounts, on a particular store of interest when it's easy to do so. If a company facilitates this process by partnering with location-based applications and making their business and relative coupons stand out on a map, consumers would be more willing to go into the company's store because it's nearby and has what the user is looking for at that moment. Customers who may not use location based services will still be able to look up nearby businesses using a search engine, so it's important that businesses also add their locations on their own websites, so that they can appear in the search results. This service is also helpful because the owner of the business doesn't have to wonder if he/she has violated the trust of their customers by using their location information inappropriately. This is mostly because consumers are searching for nearby businesses, not the other way around. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/capitalonespark/2013/03/11/get-more-from-mobile-with-location-based-services/).

What Is The Killer App?

The three location-based services in mobile applications mentioned in this report have a great amount of users. Foursquare has a community of over 40 million people worldwide with over 4.5 billion check-ins and millions more every day. In terms of businesses, over 1.5 million are using the Merchant Platform (https://foursquare.com/about). Wikitude has been named the best augmented reality browser four years in a row from 2009-2012 (http://www.wikitude.com/about/). Yelp had an average of about 108 million monthly unique visitors in the second quarter of 2013 alone and Yelpers have written over 42 million local reviews (http://www.yelp.com/about).

Even though these three applications are widely used by millions of users in the United States and across the country, the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) community is still in search for the "killer app" that will become so widely used in society that GIS will be available everywhere at all times and thus become part of the mainstream IT. In order for this application to be developed, it must include all the features and functionalities that users are looking for, such as having the integrated ability to purchase tickets, make reservations, use coupons. It would give users the ability to check out information about the place they want to visit, view menus or lists of services they offer, view pictures, check-in with friends, etc. (http://www.youbrandinc.com/social-media/the-future-of-location-based-applications/).

A true killer app would also integrate all of the geosocial, geoinformation, and geoadvertising features with augmented reality

But the true killer app is when geosocial merges with augmented reality and social currency. Augmented reality apps already exist. See Junaio. Now imagine that this app gives you additional context (such as social status or trust score) on people you meet as well as places you walk past. This will be like Angie’s List for humans and it will be accessed via AR glasses. In a way, it is startling how close we are to this now. Geosocial technology is expanding quickly. Augmented reality is doing the same. Social currency experiments like the Whuffie Bank are completely achievable. And, this exact future has been developed and explored by Cory Doctorow with his idea of “whuffie.” (http://www.futureofinsight.com/2010/11/geosocial-location-based-services-and-their-implications/)

According to Greg Steen, location-based gaming is the next killer application. There are mobile games out there that use the city of each player as a game board, allowing them to roam their neighborhood casting spells and taking over city blocks. Players can engage with others nearby by either teaming up or fighting over territory. Other games allow players to buy and sell locations they check in at, and products are integrated through barcode scanning, which can unlock virtual goods and manufacturer promotions. This would allow a partnership between marketers and developers and they can come up with new ways to integrate new features to enhance the gaming experience. The gaming world is developing quickly, as over 183 million Americans report playing a game on their mobile phones for an hour a day. This gives developers and marketers a great way to gain the market of gamers and turn it into a big market success. http://mashable.com/2011/07/24/location-based-gaming/ Markets

Younger consumers/audiences are likely to adopt these location-based applications without hesitation because they use it now to network with their friends and find out where they are and what they like. These platforms are influencing the younger generation's behaviors, because of the rewards, the vouchers and the reviews the mobile mashups promote. Other young people might use it to find and congregate with new friends who have similiar interests, so these services can bring people together in new ways. It can lead to an exchange of cultures and develop into collaboration and a more connected society. Love relationships can even be formed with these types of location based services. Gamers will use these services on their mobile phone to play interactive games with their friends. Some in this same audience will use these growing technologies because it makes their lives simpler. Older folks who might be concerned about their privacy might opt out of using location-based services altogether. Privacy is a big concern with using these location-based applications. (http://www.futureofinsight.com/2010/11/geosocial-location-based-services-and-their-implications/)

Many businesses that have mobile field employees also use location-based services to be able to better communicate with them and increase employee accountability. Business processes are becoming more digital. Managers will know when employees reach their job sites since they will use a check-in feature and they will know what their next scheduled assignment is. Managers will find out how long it takes employees to finish an assignment and use the location based services data to benchmark standard job and route times. Companies can also save on fuel costs by routing the closest employee to emergency same-day jobs. This will improve customer service satisfaction (http://www.xora.com/solutions/get-visibility/).

According to Juniper Research, the mobile location-based services market is to exceed $12 billion by 2014 because of the enhancements in hybrid positioning technologies and increased use of mobile applications. It was noted that advertising is going to form an increasing share of mobile location-based services over the next five years. Many retail, food and other businesses are already using location based services to advertise their company to consumers. They can attract more customers and increase their presence on the digital maps and search engines (http://www.juniperresearch.com/viewpressrelease.php?pr=180). In addition, business travelers will be key users of mobile location services. Businesses can use various tactics to engage these users. Hotel chains have started welcoming visitors to the city where they will be staying. This has helped with brand reinforcement (http://www.webmapsolutions.com/tag/geo-advertising).

Emergency services

Competitors

Some people argue that applications like Foursquare and Gowanda will not last too long because they have to ask users to join and invite/add friends, family and other users, so the userbase is lower than expected. These applications allow you to log in through social networks like Twitter and Facebook, therefore adding more friends to your network, but it still has to beg you to join. Users want to use applications in which most of their friends are, so if the users of Foursquare have friends who are mostly on another location-based service application, they will drop Foursquare and go there. The founders of these applications believe that users will stick with them because their applications allow you to explore your surroundings and learn more about your city more than other applications. But what is stopping Google and Facebook from developing a similar kind of mobile app environment? (http://www.youbrandinc.com/social-media/the-future-of-location-based-applications/)

Future of Digital Business

First, geosocial gives location-based businesses a way to interact with their biggest fans and customers. Research can be built into this relationship easily, as simple surveys could be triggered at check-in or check-out. In fact, promotions could be tied to top consumers and measured like a personalized groupon.
In addition to this, geosocial will only make a firm’s reputation more transparent, measurable and valuable. If there are is little consumer interest in “checking-in” to a restaurant, department store, dealership, etc., of if the comments are largely negative, then the downside of a negative reputation will begin to bite. Reputation research will become critical, and not just reputation tracking. The key will be finding actions that a firm can use to improve its reputation in a truly transparent marketplace. For example, what if any consumer can add information to a firm’s geotagged physical address so that any other consumer could read this information? The upside is vastly more consumer context about the world around them. A consumer might note that a startling number of people have tagged a certain QSR in their neighborhood with health-related complaints (like food poisoning). A jewelry chain’s decision to sell conflict diamonds or diamonds mined at slave wages could be tagged for all to see. I would imagine that business, in return, would want control of their own geographic coordinates. This will set up an interesting policy fight between free speech and property rights and who owns the geographic coordinates. (http://www.futureofinsight.com/2010/11/geosocial-location-based-services-and-their-implications/)

If you have a localized business, get engaged in the location specific networks like Foursquare and Gowalla. Work hard on putting these things into the operations of your business. Understanding these networks, what works and what doesn’t. As an early adopter this will give you a head start for when Facebook, Twitter, and other apps and networks implement this into their networks. (http://www.youbrandinc.com/social-media/the-future-of-location-based-applications/)

The second is the growth of business to business mobile location apps. Enterprises remain cautious over the adoption of mobile. The various app stores have yet to properly cater to the enterprise. Mobile apps which include location will become increasingly more important to the enterprise. Field workers will be the first to benefit from enterprise mobile adoption. But mobile location apps will, in 2012, start to become essential to the organisation and operation of many more businesses (http://www.webmapsolutions.com/tag/geo-advertising).

There's a project conducted by Carnegie Mellon University called Livehoods, which uses data from 18 million public social media posts to gather demographic and geographic information about a particular location to tell the story of neighborhoods of a city. These snapshots of the various areas could potentially give businesses a way of targeting their product and advertising to the right customer based on the demographics of a region. So far, only seven United States and Canadian cities now have access to the data for free. The project could have a pretty exciting future. It would be able to provide businesses with demographics, economic development, resources and other valuable data about a local area. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/capitalonespark/2013/03/11/get-more-from-mobile-with-location-based-services/)