Since the recent CTIA conference wasn’t the buffet of location news, one potential deal could really set the industry on fire going into the summer months. Google and Facebook both are rumored to be in talks to purchase Waze. Some say this would mean Facebook would transform into a mobile advertising company, with local ads, if it were the winning bidder. Google’s rumored interest would block the social media giant’s momentum in that marketplace.

by Kevin Dennehy

In what could be one of biggest deals in the location industry, both Google and Facebook have been rumored to be interested in buying Israel-based mapping and navigation company Waze. Published reports indicate the deal could be worth $1 billion.

Some industry analysts are skeptical that a deal could be valued that high, which would place it in the same realm as Facebook’s $1 billion purchase of photo-sharing service Instagram.

“We really do not know if Facebook is willing to spend a billion dollars on Waze, but if the deal happens, (Facebook) must have considered its options. How could this be? First, I suspect that Facebook is certain it will grow beyond its current boundaries to become the world’s most valuable company,” said Mike Dobson, Telemapics president. “Operating under this mindset, a billion dollars is peanuts, and they will not care if everyone else thinks they overpaid. In other words, Facebook might not be basing its calculation on the same ‘time-value of money’ that the rest of us are using. Second, if the economics do not really matter to Facebook, the more important question is ‘What advantages would Facebook accrue by acquiring Waze?’”

Dobson believes that Waze map databases are not competitive with Google or such commercial providers as Nokia or TomTom. “In essence, Waze does not offer competitive map coverage, competitive data quality, competitive data attributing, or a useful source of POI data. More importantly, I suspect that the Waze database will be a major league headache if Facebook plans to use it as the basis for its mapping activities supporting local search,” he said. “Further, I doubt that Waze understands enough about local advertising to help Facebook realize its most important goal of becoming a powerhouse ad agency capable of creating its own captive local search market, comparable or exceeding that enjoyed by Google.”

Another industry insider, Marc Prioleau of Prioleau Advisors, said that quality and coverage of the maps would make the deal successful — if it really is going to happen. “The rumor mill on Waze seems to be quite active so it is hard to know if there is substance there. Waze has built a very innovative traffic application, and they use the user data to build a digital map data set,” he said. “The value of the company would be tied largely to the quality and coverage of that data set and the perceived ability of a big platform like Facebook to build that out into a truly serviceable worldwide map.”

Waze is a mapping company built through crowdsourcing map and traffic data over mobile phones, which is the “magic” Dobson believes Facebook finds beguiling about the company.  While Waze claims 45 million users, its active base is more likely around 10-15 million, Dobson said. “Conversely, if you stop to consider the amount of data you could generate if all of Facebook’s mobile users were gathering mapping data through an app built on Waze, then the company might be willing to gamble on the acquisition,” he said. “Providing analytics on the behavior and location of its mobile users to advertisers and other interested parties could be a huge opportunity. On the other hand, there are numerous paths to this endpoint, not just Waze.”

Dobson said if he were to advise Facebook on the acquisition, a suggested course of action would be that the company write their own crowdsourcing application and build a good quality map database through licensing and direct and indirect map compilation techniques.  “My off-the-cuff estimate is that this could be done for less than the cost of the Waze acquisition. Beating Waze into a quality map database is going to be an expensive — well beyond the acquisition cost — and time consuming effort. Perhaps the most glaring lack in the potential Waze acquisition is the absence of a suitable POI database, which, in my opinion, is the most critical need that Facebook will have in local search.”

Dobson said he suspects that Facebook’s competitors are not concerned about the company’s potential acquisition of Waze. “Those who already in the mapping business — Google and Apple — will anticipate that it is likely that Waze could become a significant distraction for Facebook and delay the company effectively competing in the local search market. As far as the competitors are concerned, the longer it takes Facebook to mobilize its efforts in local search, the better,” he said. “In business, as in life, strange choices are made. Perhaps Facebook sees a future in Waze that depends on strategies being implemented by the company that we know nothing about. I hope so, as a good dose of innovation is just what the local search market needs.”

Distinguishing itself is another reason Facebook may be interested in Waze. Providing mapping and traffic capabilities may bring more consumers to its mobile users.

The company is also is redesigning its mobile pages platform to enable local merchant information, according to published reports. These new improvements may even challenge Foursquare and Yelp.

There were questions whether the deal with Facebook will go through as published reports indicated that Waze’s research and development activities would remain in Israel rather than go to California, where Facebook’s headquarters are based.

Google Interested in Waze to Cut off Facebook at the Location Pass?

The rumor mill is heating up as Internet giant Google and Apple are said to also be interested in Waze.  “I saw a report indicating that Google was interested. If so, it would seem that this would be a move to deny Facebook access to Waze,” Dobson said.  “Google already derives a significant amount of information from passive crowdsourcing — recording the GPS traces of the devices of their users — and I am not sure that the acquisition would provide them any opportunities that they are not already exploiting. Of course, we might remember that Garmin, who had no intention of buying TeleAtlas, made a bid and significantly raised the price that TomTom paid for the mapping company.”

Other analysts say while there have been several news articles on why Google should buy Waze, it all could be poorly informed speculation. Others say that the Israel tech press is quick to spread rumors. One analyst said, “I hear that the talks are legit, but my guess is that the deal in discussion is not $1 billion.”

While stand-alone portable navigation systems seem to be a fading market driver, connected units seem to be the rage at trade shows and other venues. One example is the recent partnership of Audi of America and T-Mobile USA, who announced a data plan that includes real-time news, weather and fuel prices, Google Earth access and Google Voice Local Search.

The marriage of usually two distinct industries the past three or so years has generated new interest in telematics, which has always been a catch-all term for an automobile’s mobile information features.

While not exactly an eye-opening finding, Berg Insight says sales of PNDs are set to significantly decrease in coming years as consumers choose alternatives. The company says that PND sales will fall to 17 million units, down from the more than 28 million sold last year — and 33 million in 2011.

Berg says PNDs will face stiff competition from lower-cost embedded systems. The company says 150 million people use smartphone navigation apps, compared to 105 million in 2011.

Such companies as Dutch PND manufacturer TomTom said it posted a 13 percent fall, to $262 million, in first-quarter sales. The company is diversifying its product line to counter the loss of revenue from falling PND sales.

To diversify, TomTom rolled out a GPS watch recently to compete with rival Garmin, which has similar products on the market. According to published reports, the company said it is competing with mobile phones for the navigation market.

To echo the Berg findings, TomTom said about 2.1 million navigation units were sold in Europe last year, but in the United States, the drop was even more significant. The company’s PND products fell from 1.5 million units in 2012 to 1.1 million in 2011.

The competition to PNDs is coming from a number of areas. In the recent Audi and T-Mobile deal, users can retrieve information over Wi-Fi for $15 a month (the company says new and existing owners can receive full data services for 30 months for $30 a month). Through the Audi Connect system, users can get connectivity for as many as eight devices.

Audi Connect, which first went on the market in 2011, allows users to gain access to real-time localized weather, news and fuel prices.

Apple Buys Indoor Navigation Company WiFiSLAM

Say what you want about the recent surge in interest of indoor navigation. Some call it an over-hyped fad — or not technically ready for market. The bottom line is that Apple thinks enough of the market to have spent $20 million for Silicon Valley start-up WiFiSLAM in late March.

According to published reports, WiFiSLAM can pinpoint a user’s indoor location to within 8 feet, using Wi-Fi.

Apple has made several inroads to enhance its location portfolio since its Apple Maps debacle in 2012 when users complained about inaccurate directions.

The problems were so acute for Apple Maps that its CEO told potential customers to buy navigation from its rivals, including Waze.

Apple rival Google already has been in the indoor positioning and navigation market, mapping shopping malls, airports and sports venues in several countries.

DeCarta Launches Local Search Engine

DeCarta has launched the L2 Local Search Engine. L2 offers companies the ability to index their own data and make it searchable via a sophisticated single-line search, said Kim Fennell, deCarta president and CEO. Those companies might include local search, vertical search (hotels, restaurants), classifieds, newspapers, Internet yellow pages and others.

“Single-line search is the standard for most web search and for the big mapping portals, but is oddly missing from most local search sites,” Fennell said. “They still use a two-line entry, first specifying what you want and then where you want it. The main reason for that disconnect is that the technology to do good single-line geo-search requires a pretty deep understanding of geospatial data and technology, and is hard to do well. L2 solves that problem. We provide a fully featured local search engine with baseline map and POI data,” he said.

“The local site can clean and index their proprietary data using our tools and then host the search engine in the cloud,” Fennell said. “They get the control of the data and the user interface that the big map portals use.”

Some examples of a deCarta Local Search Engine point of interest entry may be, “coffee near XYZ company,” “restaurants on Main Street,” and “parking near AMC Theater.”

In other LBS news:

• Telenav introduced its embedded product for the Scout for Cars product line. The embedded product features in-dash navigation with mobile and cloud services for real-time, personalized information, the company said. Marketed to automakers, the company said installers can connect Scout for Phones service in their cars for real-time services and personalization. The company said the unit comes with flexible branding so OEMs can offer embedded navigation in their vehicles through their own brands.

• Audiovox’ $169.99 Car Connection kit tracks vehicles and monitors the driver with a built-in GPS unit and a two-way cellular data connection, without a smartphone, the company said. Once an account is established, and the unit is recognized by the Car Connection service, owners can track their cars’ movements and receive e-mail or text alerts in the event the car is stolen or used without permission. An interesting feature is a free app that allows users to find the car via a smartphone. Car Connection costs $10 a month, or $90 per year, and has a $20 activation fee.

Send your LBS news and announcements to Kevin Dennehy at kdennehy@gpsworld.com.

By Kevin Dennehy

The recent Mobile World Congress, held at Barcelona’s Fira Gran Via conference center, featured big connected vehicle announcements from Ford and GM. Ford announced a slew of deals, one partnering with Spotify to make Spotify Premium available through its Sync AppLink. GM’s big announcement is that its OnStar safety, security and navigation service will use AT&T Mobility’s network for LTE modules in 2014.

Ford’s partnership with Spotify gives drivers access to millions of tunes on the road.

Industry observers believe that GM’s announcement indicates the new AT&T deal could give the connected vehicle market a big boost as the units will go into most cars, including entry-level vehicles. Wireless carriers have indicated that transportation remains one of the key vertical markets they are aggressively getting in to.

AT&T pulled a big coup as GM uses Verizon Wireless for its OnStar service. However, published reports indicate that the company has been disconnecting subscribers who are not currently using the service. Verizon said it had lost 490,000 connections in late 2011 — and said the losses were due to decline in telematics customers.

There is no word on whether 2012’s $617 million purchase of Hughes Telematics had any effect on the Verizon-GM relationship.

Overall, OnStar, which costs $18.95 per month, has more than 6 million customers worldwide.

A concern with connected vehicles, and this is an issue that has been around for the past few years, is that automobile manufacturers do not believe the vehicle isn’t the new mobile phone — though some carriers believe it will be. Another concern is the form factor itself — what is better? What will the winner be? An embedded system or a system that integrates with a user’s smartphone?

Not to be outdone by GM, Ford also said its 2104 Ford Ecosport will feature AppLink capabilities. The company also said it would be offering, in Europe, applications from Kaliki, Glympse and Aha. Ford says it now has 2,500 folks registered in its developer program — doubling the numbers from last month.

Ultimately, many analysts say that two major market issues will need to be resolved for the connected vehicle segment to take off. One is what will consumers want? The other is standardization — will every vehicle have the same system in use? Already Ford and GM seem to have differing technology and business models for this market.

Is Mobile World Congress Getting Too Big to be Useful?

With more than 72,000 attendees this year, which is a little more than half the size of the gigantic Las Vegas-based Consumer Electronics Show, is MWC becoming too big and less focused for wireless application developers, LBS companies looking to partner and other location company entities?

Does this sound like a mini CES? The Fira Grand Via had 1 million square feet of exhibit space, 1,700 exhibitors and 72,000 attendees from 200 countries. All of this is puzzling for a conference that had no Google (the company had a big exhibit last year) or Microsoft.

In addition, there were no huge announcements — even the connected vehicle news would be mid-level news at CES. Does it say something strange about a big wireless show when your main news is connected vehicles?

Deciding not to get lost in the hugeness of a big trade show, most of the wireless companies and handset manufacturers choose to make their own product and deal announcements at their own branded shows or independent press conferences. Outside of a handset having LBS capability rolled out, and companies saying they are rolling out capability in European nations, there wasn’t much location-specific news.

With no big indoor position news at MWC, does that spell a struggle for the new technology and potential gigantic market? Many publications, including this one, has touted indoor positioning as one of the technologies that will spur LBS’ market growth.

A few smaller companies did display indoor positioning products at MWC. Rx Networks rolled out its Xybrid Synchro that allows a device to self-located without an active data network connection. The company also rolled out a cloud-based GNSS systems that allows users to determine a location even when weak location signals are available, the company said.

Another indoor positioning company, Insiteo, showed off its products that work on iOS and Android devices to allow users to find booths at MWC. The company says product finding, location-based marketing and data mining are all applications for the platform.

In other Mobile World Congress news:

• Telit launched m2mLOCATE, a feature that adds Cell-ID location for a range of its cellular connectivity modules. The company uses RX Networks’ XYBRID RT service, a database that encompasses 40 million cell-IDs.
• CSR demonstrated its Location Services Platform, which features context detection and user self-learning to deliver indoor and outdoor location for the consumer and enterprise markets. The company says the platform has an indoor accuracy of less than 10 meters.
• TeleCommunication Systems shopped its LBS suite of services at MWC to both enterprise and consumer companies. TCS recently deployed four new mobile operators on its hosted cloud LBS product. The company says it offers revenue-producing branded and private-labeled applications for navigation, hyper-local search, enterprise and family locators.
• ALK Technologies, now owned by Trimble Navigation, said its CoPilot GPS navigation apps for smartphones and tablets will be available for Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8. The company said it’s always been high on Microsoft’s mobile products, as CoPilot was originally developed for Microsoft’s Pocket PC. CoPilot features voice-guided GPS navigation, turn-by-turn guidance, trip planning and automotive-grade street maps, the company said. The unit’s live services include Yelp, ActiveTraffic, Wikipedia and Google Search.

Kevin Dennehy

There always is a lull in news between the Consumer Electronics Show and the Mobile World Congress, which is later this month in Barcelona. However, published reports that Facebook plans to launch a location application is big news. The social network giant, with more than 1 billion mobile users worldwide, could conceivably generate huge advertising revenue through the location-based friend-finder app. Facebook has a number of competitors, but with the sheer number of worldwide users, it has to make the industry take strong notice.

Facebook to Roll Out Location Application for Mobile Users

Facebook is attempting to grab a big piece of the mobile location market with a new app that will track users to perhaps boost mobile advertising sales.  The news, first reported by Bloomberg, indicates that Facebook is adding location features to perhaps take a chunk of profit from 1 billion mobile users who use the social network.

The new feature, expected to be launched in March, will work with smartphones, even when the user is not using the application, according to the Bloomberg article.  This may raise some privacy hackles, as competing services have opt-in functions. In addition, some handset manufacturers and carriers require user opt-in as part of privacy agreements.

Facebook already purchased two location companies in Glancee and Gowalla. Glancee is a location-tracking startup Facebook bought in May 2012. Gowalla, a location-based social network, was purchased in December 2011.

Facebook Has Competitors in Location Market

The new Facebook location app will be an answer to Google Latitude, which was launched in early 2009. Latitude, a feature for Google Maps, is an opt-in mobile app that allows users to see the location of friends and family, who also allow the service to track them. Google’s premise, four years ago when it launched Latitude, was that many users wonder where their friends and family are — and what they are doing.

Because it is an opt-in service, Google said users could find out where a spouse was stuck in traffic on the way home from work, knowing when a loved one’s flight landed safely, or if a buddy was in town. Although it has been around for more than four years, Latitude was innovative with the concept that not only can you see friends on a map, but you can get in touch with them via SMS, Google Talk, gmail and  updating a status message.

“While Google quietly improved its databases, tools and location services, most other players in the location industry were slipping further behind, apparently involved in a frenzy of disorganization prompted by a lack of skills in strategic planning,” said Mike Dobson, Telemapics president, in a recent interview.

Another similar service, Find My Friends from Apple, runs on the iOS 5 operating system.  It is another location share service that attempts to allow users to find friends in real time, according to published reports.

Apple needs to hit a home run in the location and mapping market. Last year, the controversy surrounding Apple Maps caused a shake up at the company and industry because of faulty map data. The incident made manufacturers realize that digital maps are a very important feature for smartphones. It also made many of these giant companies, who believe that location isn’t that big of a deal, sober up to the fact it is hard to make quality maps.

A number of other companies are offering friend and family finder apps, namely Location Labs, Life360 and Loopt.

Still, while such companies as Facebook, Apple and Google give away maps and navigation for free, which destroyed smaller companies and caused a huge consolidation of the industry starting in 2008, some believe that maps are too hard to produce for free. Some analysts, Dobson included, think that “free” maps and navigation services may not stay that way as consumers and enterprise customers demand better accuracy.

Tablet Owners Spend More than Smartphone Buyers

In advance of the Consumer Electronics Show, analysts were saying not only that flatscreen TVs sales were dropping, but the champion of the previous shows, the tablet, also was to see a downward trend. Not so, says ABI Research, which estimates nearly 200 million tablets shipped worldwide since 2009, with an additional 1 billion tablets forecast to ship over the next 5 years.

What’s interesting, or not, depending on your location company’s strategy, is that ABI says 22 percent of users spend $50 or more per month and 9 percent spend $100 or more on purchases ordered from their tablets. That’s higher amounts than from even smartphones, the company says.

As we reported last fall, the next edition of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet introduced mapping services in partnership with Nokia, which snubbed technology from Google, which is funny because its mobile operating system powers the platform. But it was an indicator of how much promise companies are still seeing in adding location-based services capability to tablets.

In other LBS news:

• Sense Networks released the results of a location-based mobile advertising campaign for Denver-based fast food chain Quiznos. The campaign, conducted in Portland, Oregon, placed ads on mobile devices of people 18-34, who eat at competing, and similar, restaurants such as Subway. The company said Quiznos had a 20 percent gain in coupon redemptions.
• TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. (TCS) is providing map, local search, location services and navigation applications for the new BlackBerry 10 smartphone. The TCS-based mapping application will ship with the new smartphones, which are scheduled to roll out in mid-March. TCS’ APIs are also available for Blackberry 10 developers. This leads many in the industry to believe that if this smartphone is a much-needed home run for Research in Motion, the TCS partnership could be a big deal.
• Locaid plans to provide GTECH with secure mobile location, IP location and other LBS to include geofencing and location authentication. What’s cool about this deal is GTECH designs and sells lottery technology. Its service includes a geo-complaince engine that ensures a mobile or Internet-connected device is within state lines.

If you have news, or tips, or gossip, please contact me at kdennehy@gpsworld.com.  The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is coming up this month, so get me your story ideas and product news.

Kevin Dennehy

CES is big, loud and happens every year. For the past three or so years, the largest tradeshow in the United States has become a showcase for automobile manufacturers’ product rollouts…which is a far cry from the traditional car stereos and mega-huge flat-screen TVs you see walking the several football field-sized show floors. CES may not be everyone’s idea of a good time — hotels are expensive, you can’t get a cab as lines are a quarter-mile long, and much of the action for location may not even be in the show itself anymore. But it would be hard to say it’s a boring week.

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas had lot of everything: 150,000 people, nearly 3,300 exhibitors and almost 2 million square feet of exhibit space. What it didn’t have was a ton of location-based services news.

AT&T Developers Summit.

Most of that action came at off-site meetings such as the AT&T Developer’s Summit and other venues. Still, a lot of auto manufacturers, partnered with the wireless carriers, use the nation’s largest trade show as a launching pad for infotainment units that feature two-way connectivity.

This connectivity will be important for hybrid navigation, both automotive and fleet management users and service providers who want the best of both worlds, said Kim Fennell, deCarta president and CEO. “[This means] off-board search and navigation to get real-time content, traffic, search along a route for current information such as parking spaces near a theater, as well as proper on-board capabilities when no wireless connection is available,” he said. “Companies ‘talk’ a good story, but the ability to do real hybrid is difficult technologically and so this conversation will gain prominence [this year].”

Ford and GM both touted their developer programs at CES. Ford’s developer program allows users to work with SYNC and AppLink application programming interface. GM plans to offer developers an SDK.

Ford makes news announcements at a press conference at the 2013 International CES.

At CES, not a lot of new handsets were launched, as many manufacturers use their own events or other trade shows for launch. One of the biggest trends of 2013, Fennell believes, is the movement by handset manufacturers to launch their own LBS apps and services. “Of course, Apple made a mess of it — and the result is that companies now recognize that geospatial is hard to do…well,” he said. “This will get some companies to back off doing their own, while it will get others to continue, but with more care and attention to what it takes to do it right.”

CES always announces what companies think is going to be the next big thing. Unfortunately, consumers sometimes don’t always agree. A year ago, the big deal was Ultrabook computers, which were supposed to be the one-up to tablets and smartphones, but lackluster sales have diminished that fledgling market.

Two years ago, the big thing was 3D TV, which turned out to be expensive and lacked content. “3D is overblown. Not at scale yet,” Fennell said.

Maybe the PND Isn’t Dead Yet

The lag in portable navigation sales and the rise of the smartphone as the navigation platform of choice signaled that maybe the end was near for PNDs. In fact, many companies said consumers would rather pay the extra money for manufacturer-installed infotainment products with two-way connectivity than a PND.

This means that PNDs couldn’t traditionally receive current traffic, weather or new driving information on roads, restaurants and other services.

The Magellan SmartGPS.

To start competing with the auto manufacturers, at CES such companies as Magellan rolled out PND models with Bluetooth that connects to a customer’s smartphone. The $249 SmartGPS uses a consumer’s cell phone data connection to receive social and LBS. It will soon offer Foursquare alerts and Yelp restaurant reviews.

Another PND giant, TomTom, partnered with Telenav at CES to provide its Live Traffic service to Telenav, which makes Scout, an application for iPhone, Android and Windows mobile devices.

In other CES news:

• Garmin rolled out the K2 platform, a customizable unit that offers digital displays, voice control, infrared buttons, and smartphone integration. The unit features navigation, vehicle diagnostics, music and real-time information.

Garmin’s K2 platform.

• Subaru introduced Starlink, a new in-car connectivity product. The unit includes Aha by HARMAN integration that allows drivers to access tens of thousands of stations of Web-based content, from radio stations, podcasts, and weather sites to social media feeds.
• Chrysler upgraded its Uconnect infotainment system with dealer-activated navigation, which allows Chrysler Group dealers to activate the navigation functions in vehicles equipped with certain systems.
• One question mark at CES was the absence of Microsoft, which didn’t exhibit for the first time in years. In years past, reporters would stand in line to listen to Bill Gates, who usually opened the conference with a speech or product roll-out the day before.

End of an Era

One of the pioneer companies to integrate GPS into wireless devices, as well as take a big chunk of the enterprise market has been sold. As GPS World reported, Princeton, N.J.-based ALK Technologies was purchased by Trimble for an undisclosed figure.

ALK’s transportation, logistics and mobile workforce products are going to Trimble’s Transportation and Logistics division. No word about what is happening to ALK’s consumer products.

ALK’s two flagship products, CoPilot and PC Miler were sold in North American and overseas. Approximately 64 percent of North American for-hire motor carriers use ALK products, the company said.

ALK Technologies founder and long-time industry veteran, Alain Kornhauser, said last year that location markets had been good for the company. The company’s CoPilot Live had been seeing good sales in Europe, he said.

Kornhauser was a dynamic speaker at the GPS-Wireless conference for 13 years, informing and enraging attendees alike with his great quotes. One favorite:  “Telematics is a Stalinist term.”

Barry Glick, former MapQuest executive who was hired in 2011 as CEO, ran the company’s day-to-day operations. In December 2012, ALK established a new group, Enterprise Solutions, which combined its PC Miler, CoPilot Truck and CoPilot Live Professional Product lines plus supporting map data, software tools and professional services.

Kevin Dennehy

Looking back at 2012, and this is our last column of the year, a number of stories in the location industry spring to the front. The rise of indoor positioning as a potential lucrative market is one. Another is perhaps Samsung’s purchase of CSR to give a major consumer electronics manufacturer even more location capability. Or the continued story of Google as the 800-pound gorilla in the location room. But, resoundingly, the top story probably has to be the controversy surrounding Apple Maps, which caused a shake-up at the company and industry. The incident made manufacturers realize that digital maps are a very important feature for smartphones. It also made many of these giant companies, who believe that location isn’t that big of a deal, sober up to the fact it is hard to make quality maps.

The top location industry story of 2012 may be a cautionary one for the industry. The big story was the release of Apple Maps in September, which was criticized by consumers for inaccurate driving directions, among other problems.

Apple had replaced Google Maps on its iPhone 5. But the criticism for the phone’s maps forced Apple CEO Tim Cook to apologize and even tell consumers to use such competitor’s maps as Waze, MapQuest or Microsoft’s Bing.

The controversy plagued Apple Maps app.

Since the last LBS Insider column, Apple fired Richard Williamson, who oversaw the company’s Maps team, according to Bloomberg. The initial report indicated that Eddy Cue, Apple senior vice president, is looking for a new management team to replace Williamson. The company is putting pressure on Apple partner TomTom to update mapping data and consulting with third-party mapping experts.

Marc Prioleau, managing director of Prioleau Advisors, said there are two basically two key points surrounding Apple Maps: “Maps are really hard to do. Maps were deemed to be an important asset for a major platform to own versus rent from Google.”

So what does that mean for Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and others dabbling in the location industry? “Can they get [quality] by using a potential competitors maps/local search or do they have to build their own? And if they build their own, how do they avoid the problems Apple has had?” Prioleau said.

The Apple Maps fiasco proved how important maps and navigation are to users of mobile phones, said Mike Dobson, TeleMapics president and author of an industry blog, which received huge readership during the incident. “In doing so, the company generated more ill will than I thought was possible when dealing with maps and navigation,” he said.

Industry Expert Looks Back on 2012

There were two significant trends in LBS in 2012, Dobson said. “The first was that the industry has transformed from a domain of specialists who seemed to be working underground to an industry that has caught the world’s eye as one of the most important technology families now in existence. It is a rare year when The Economist magazine writes an analysis that is focused on location as it did in its 2012 Technology and Geography Special Report,” he said.

Economist’s Annual Innovation Awards were dominated by people in the location industry, Dobson said. Computing and Telecommunications awards went to Jack Dangermond (ESRI) and John Hanke (Google), while Gary Burrell and Min Kao (both from Garmin) won awards for Consumer Products, he said.

“The second biggest trend in 2012 was the inexorable rise of Google to the top of the location chain. While Google quietly improved its databases, tools and location services, most other players in the location industry were slipping further behind, apparently involved in a frenzy of disorganization prompted by a lack of skills in strategic planning,” Dobson said. “What this torpor has led to is an apparent inability to produce market-leading products, as Apple has shown with Apple Maps and Nokia has shown with its negatively received mapping service. I suppose the rumor that the company is considering renaming the service ‘Here?’ is untrue.”

Through hard work related to early disappointments with the accuracy of its mapping products, Google has managed to learn a number of important lessons related to map compilation and data quality, Dobson said. “Perhaps the greatest lesson it had to learn was that algorithms used in mapping and navigation often need the intervention of an operator who understands geography, mapping and navigation. In addition, map compilation systems often need the assistance of a human with local knowledge to prioritize data solutions. Put simply, Google has confronted map accuracy issues and is rounding the curve on improved product quality.” To most everyone else, the main exception being ESRI, Dobson said he awards a hearty “shame on you.”

A final 2012 trend is that numerous capable leaders who led the “Location Revolution” are now on the sidelines or out of the industry completely, Dobson said. “For example, the majority of the ‘brain trust’ from Navteq, those contributors who understood the nature of mapping and navigation, are no longer with Nokia, a company that appears rudderless in the location marketplace. Just as it shows that most of the people who understood mapping and navigation at Tele Atlas are no longer with TomTom,” he said. “Other acquisitions produced similar results, as they always do. However, the crucial issue here is that losing history often means losing perspective and I am concerned that LBS is on this destructive path. While we always would like to think that as an industry we have institutionalized or memorialized personal contributions, problem-solving methods and other individually oriented contribution to products, this is never really true.

“While each new management team should have the right to rearrange the pebbles on the beach and say that the new organization of pebbles solves the problems of the previous organization, this is rarely the case. Innovation, not reorganization, are what makes a difference in all industry segments. As 2012 closes, I am tempted to ask, “Where are these market-making innovations in LBS?”

2013 and Beyond

While it was a big part of the LBS landscape in 2012, Dobson believes the current emphasis on indoor location is both overblown and being overhyped, but it will remain the focus of the industry in 2013. “This is yet another example of smaller players in the location world trying to find something new that they feel might help to get them acquired, while the larger players are hoping it is something that might provide a sustainable competitive advantage over Google,” he said. “I suspect that Nokia and Apple might now know what Microsoft knows — that in order to catch Google in location, you need to have a search engine that can successfully perform local queries that is tied to a source of revenue such as mobile advertising. My belief is that Google will continue forward integrating location as part of its effort to dominate advertising globally and locally. Until the other players catch on to this differentiator and field a powerful advertising-based competitor, they cannot be considered in the same league as Google.”

As a final shot, Dobson said he brought a lump of coal for those who enjoy “free” maps and navigation services. “My belief is that within the next decade mapping and navigation services will be fee-based. The addition of all the bells and whistles to online mapping services, in addition to other negative factors, are making the game too expensive to continue to give the product away for free,” he said. “Consider this bit of history. In the United States, before the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, paper maps were given away free at gas stations. Also forgotten by many is the fact that someone pumped the gas, cleaned the car’s windows, checked the engine oil level and inflated tires to their proper pressure.

“After the oil embargo, price increases helped to beat the profit out of the system, as well as all of the other services it once offered such as free maps. Issues of net neutrality, telecom’s desire to recover infrastructure costs related to providing Internet services, indoor location infrastructure, and the decline of competition in the world of map and navigation data will inexorably lead to maps and navigation services that we will be required to pay for with real money, at least if we want the premium blend with all the bells and whistles.”

2013 Will Be a Big Year for Indoor Positioning

Because “outdoor” map solutions may be done because solutions only tell consumers how to get from Point A to Point B, indoor positioning is the future for LBS, said Kris Kolodziej, aisle411 vice president of location services. “Google already has about 10,000 maps worldwide. Aisle411 has 10,000 in the United States alone. It shows that retailers/indoor venues are using LBS and maps to engage the consumers and fight off the likes of Amazon,” he said. “Finding things indoors, inside stores and malls like products and offers. Retailers will need to get even more engaged and relevant if they want the consumer to shop at their store versus Amazon.”

Indoor positioning will be the big deal in 2013, said Mike Flom, LBS/Wireless App Consulting managing director. “Given its incorporation by major OS/smartphone manufacturers in their maps products and at least some progress on indoor location precision and quality, the usage growth and indoor map quality and coverage improvements should be exponential by year end,” he said. “A runner up to indoor positioning is built-in rich wireless maps and navigation for automobiles. There’s probably a higher expectation from consumers due to smartphones than delivery by automakers, but since when has the auto industry operated at consumer electronics speed?”

Smartphone Market Still Going to Drive LBS

The biggest trend of 2012 was the adoption of wireless GPS maps and navigation as a standard and differentiated feature on smartphone operating systems, said Flom, who believes that Apple’s introduction of their own free maps and navigation on iOS was the biggest event of 2012, along with Microsoft’s use of Bing Maps/Nokia Maps on Windows Phone 8.

“Why is this important? Approximately 85 percent to 90 percent of the U.S. smartphone OS market now has access to exceptionally rich, free wireless voice navigation. Penetration is similar in developed and growing fast in many developing countries,” Flom said. “The enormous penetration of smartphones means wireless voice navigation has gone from a crude novelty in 2002 to a sophisticated service with widespread penetration in under 10 years. The implication is all tablets, an extraordinarily fast growing product, now has rich, location-based map support. While only a small percentage currently have precision location functionality, such as a GPS chip or bluetooth GPS receiver, this is destined to change over time. Now that the basics are in place, more sophisticated features and content have a huge path to an enormous market,” Flom said.

Flom does not believe that the industry has been overhyped. “Given the extraordinary expense Google, Apple and Microsoft have gone to generate their own maps and voice navigation features, and the high rates of adoption, the hype was if anything too low. Each OS manufacturer could have simply let third parties continue to offer an app in their store,” he said. “The decision not to give third parties including Google the traffic indicates the importance of location and maps. The Apple Maps quality debacle, which eclipsed almost every controversy in the smartphone world, including patent wars and Siri limitations, showed that great maps are difficult and expensive. Apple’s adoption of their own map product cemented Google’s introduction of wireless GPS navigation as an essential and differentiated standard feature of smartphones.”

Mobile Advertising Still Looking for Market Share

Mobile advertising still is searching for a successful business formula, Prioleau said. “Every year it gets better but there is no sense that that has been cracked, at least if you look at advertising spend on mobile. The mismatch between time spent on mobile and ad spend on mobile has been well documented, but the gap isn’t closing fast,” he said.

In terms of location context, many companies don’t get it, but some do, Prioleau said. “It’s not just about where you are, and what’s nearby, but what does your location tell you about why you’re there, what you’re doing, and what or who you might be interested in,” he said. “Many companies are working on using location, along with other signals, to define context and from that pushing interesting information to the user — Highlight, PlaceIQ, Niantic, etc. It is early and it isn’t clear that anyone has got it right, but this will be an area of evolution going forward.”

In other LBS news:

• Sprint Nextel rolled out its in-vehicle platform, Velocity, which allows auto manufacturers to offer buyers navigation, security, remote diagnostics, emergency services and infotainment. The unit, which was rolled out at the 2012 Los Angeles Auto Show, will be available worldwide to allow network providers to add connectivity, the company said. Sprint has been getting into the auto arena in a big way this year with its partnership with Chrysler Group’s Uconnect voice-activated vehicle communications system.

Janice Partyka

It’s all about knowing where people are located. The government and private companies are taking hundreds of millions of geo-coded photos of license plates creating huge databases of where you’ve been. Meanwhile, hyper local mobile ads don’t work when ad networks sometimes receive grossly inaccurate locations of targeted consumers. Xad has developed a way to evaluate and score the accuracy of location positions they get from publishers. Also, mobile ad spending may reach $2.6 billion by year’s end, and Nokia is fighting back against rivals with a new mapping solution for Apple users and automating 3D mapping collection through a purchase of Earthmine. Keep reading for details.

License Plate Snapshots. There hasn’t been much of an outcry over privacy from a huge location tracking operation that doesn’t require consent of the subject. Hundreds of millions of geo-coded photos are being taken of license plates throughout the country. These databases are being created by private companies and the government who use vehicle-mounted cameras. Records include a photo of the vehicle, license plate numbers/letters, time and location. Over two years the Riverside California police have collect two million unique license plate pictures using 49 camera-equipped vehicles. A citizen filed a California Public Record Act request and received a report containing 112 images of his cars. In some of the pictures he can identify car occupants and even the clothes they are wearing.

Private companies that started photographing license plates were initially in the business of repossessing vehicles. With a mounted license plate camera, they drive as many miles as possible through back alleys, parking lots and streets. An alert sounds when a license plate matches the repossession database. Some of these companies are evolving to focusing solely on license plate data collection and have gathered hundreds of millions of photographs. One of the companies, MVTrac , claims to have geo-coded photos of the majority of U.S. registered vehicles.

The data can be used for ill purposes. It can show who may be present at a political gathering, parked at a rehab center, or located at a cancer treatment center. In 1998 a police officer in Washington D.C. pled guilty for extorting owners of vehicles parked at a gay bar. The databases will grow. The Department of Homeland Security has provided more than $50 million in federal grants to police for more cameras.

A Drop in the Advertising Bucket. Advertisers will pay out $2.6 billion for ads on phones and tablets in 2012, predicts eMarketer. This is a small fraction of total ad revenue, less than two percent of advertisers’ overall spend. Yet, mobile ad spending is growing; it is currently triple 2010 spending. The king of mobile advertising is Google, which receives 56 percent of all mobile advertising.

Disparity among Apps. The amount of revenue from mobile advertising varies greatly among applications. Facebook reported 14 percent of its total ad revenue in the third quarter came from mobile. Almost 60 percent of Pandora’s ad revenue came from mobile in the second quarter. Twitter indicates that some days the majority of its ad revenue has come from mobile.

Problematic Location Accuracy. One of the issues of mobile advertising is the accuracy of the mobile user’s location. It is problematic to send a hyper local ad if the ad network receives a grossly inaccurate location position, perhaps a geo-code at the center of a zip code. xAd, a local mobile advertising network, has developed a technology that analyzes the multitude of location signals being passed by each publisher and scores them according to accuracy and performance. “The industry cannot take location signals at face value,” said Chi-Chao Chang of xAd. “What we have found through our SmartLocation technology is that location inputs are often inconsistent on a per ad request basis. In fact, some of these signals are just plain wrong.” As a result, ad campaigns may be running on inventory that is not suitable for granular targeting, resulting in wasted ad impressions and overall lackluster performance.

Automated 3D Mapping. Nokia, fighting to get back to the top of the heap, is acquiring 3D map-technology maker Earthmine and revamping Nokia’s mapping tools to win back customers from its rivals. The company announced a new mapping app for Apple mobile devices and unveiled the new brand name “Here” for its location services and website. Earthmine will provide Nokia with a complete solution for collecting, processing, managing, and hosting 3D street-level imagery. “This will add competitive advantages and increased differentiation to HERE‘s Location Content and Location Platform, sustaining competitiveness in B2B (e.g., data for in-car navigation systems) and drive highly engaging user experiences,” reads a blog on the Nokia website. The company believes that the Earthmine data collection vehicles are massively scalable and expect to be using them in 31 countries next year.

Kevin Dennehy

The month of October and now into November was filled with several conferences, but not a lot of location news. A few news snippets, while not blockbusters, were important. One was Waze’s decision to offer its own location-based advertising. Another was a milestone for Ford, which said its Sync information system is now in five million vehicles.  On an end-of-an-era note, of which there have been quite a few in the last two years, Sprint has decided to drop the Nextel name. Nextel was one of the innovative companies in the late 1990s and early 2000s, placing location capability into mobile phones and jump-starting an industry.

Waze recently said it is offering a global location-based advertising platform that will be directed to its 30 million users. Waze, founded in 2009 in Israel, says smartphone users can try the service for free — the profit for them is ad revenue from local and large brands.

GPS World’s LBS Insider recently reported that Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, actually endorsed Waze as an alternative to its own mapping service after users were experiencing problems with it. Waze, which is offering the advertisements in the United States, said it saw a jump in downloads after the announcement.

Some industry analysts say it may be a mistake for Waze to swim in the deep end of the pool to compete with such mobile advertising giants as Google.

Waze raised a total of $67 million from investor Kleiner Perkins and Hong Kong investor Li Ka-shing.  They cite big partners such as Circle K, Dunkin’ Donuts, MACS, Kum & Go, Wyndham Hotels, Jamba Juice, and P&G.

Palo Alto-based Waze is probably best known for its driving directions based on user input.  The company says that its users spend an average of more than 7 hours in their vehicles a month.

The company, in order not to annoy users, is minimizing the number of pins on a map advertisement. According to published reports, the company said its advertisements will include coupons.

From the Waze blog:  “We don’t want to bombard you, so you’ll never see too many businesses crowded on the map at once. Instead, the algorithm that powers Waze Ads aims to bring you a helpful selection of the various retailers around you on your daily drive.”

Waze is also making advertising inroads in Europe. It recently announced a partnership with Lumata, an Italy-based mobile marketing company. The deal allows Lumata to have a an exclusive right for advertising on Waze’s app in Italy, according to published reports.

Waze announced in June that car models will soon integrate the company’s mapping software. The company’s iOS and Android app’s users contribute road data while they drive, share accident reports, police speed traps, traffic jams and other data.

Five Million Sync Units in Five Years…

Ford and Microsoft’s Sync infotainment system has been installed in five million Ford and Lincoln vehicles. The unit, which was rolled out at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, was one of the first products to allow smartphones to work with car components.

Sync was innovative in that it bundled turn-by-turn navigation, hands-free calling, text message reading, and other features.  Earlier aftermarket products, such as Clarion’s AutoPC, were busts — but perhaps five-to-seven years too early for the market.

Ford jazzed up Sync with touchscreens and voice recognition since it rolled out its first model, which only used push buttons. It integrated other features such as audio, air conditioning/climate control, and navigation. Soon the newer version, MyFord Touch, offered video streaming, music, and a voice-activated climate control system.

Ford announced earlier this year that it was working with State Farm to add all Sync-equipped vehicles to the insurance giant’s Drive Safe & Save approved vehicles. A customer, through a voluntary sign up, can run a Vehicle Health Report that sends information to State Farm. Potential insurance savings for a customer could be 40 percent.

Ford is working with several industry companies, including Pandora and TeleNav Scout, through its AppLink program, which was globally offered earlier this year.

In other LBS news:

• Sprint’s recent decision to drop the Nextel name was the end of an era, but not a surprise. It was Nextel, before its 2005 merger with Sprint, that truly innovated consumer and enterprise applications and markets on the mobile handset. In the wake of Japan’s Softbank purchase of 70 percent of Sprint, the Nextel part of the Sprint name will go away in mid-2013. The new name will be Sprint Corp.  The Nextel brand was known for its iDEN technology and network, which is gradually being shut down by Sprint.

• The recent U.S. presidential election had an LBS story. Foursquare had an app that had the goal of encouraging users to vote. The “I Voted” app allowed users to find their local polling station on Election Day and check in to show they cast a vote. Foursquare, trying to show that it offers more than “check-in” capability, recently announced a rating system for businesses. It is not clear whether the service, with 25 million users, is going after companies such as TripAdvisor and Yelp for a share of the evaluation/services market.

• Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S III managed to knock Apple’s iPhone 4S off the pedestal as the world’s most popular smartphone, in terms of sales, in the third quarter, said Strategy Analytics. Samsung sold around 18 million S III phones during the quarter, compared to Apple’s 16.2 million iPhone 4S units. The Galaxy S features a large touchscreen and GPS for location-based services.