Under the pretense of public safety, the US government requires that new cell phones be able to report their location to the police in case of emergency — and, of course, when law enforcement or spy agencies are simply curious about your activities. The phone companies paid for the expensive equipment to provide location services, but to date haven't found a way to do something commercially useful with location, and they haven't recouped their costs. But at the same time, location has become a component. Location doesn't require a separate, expensive box or an astrolabe with navigation tables; instead, location is a built-in component in cell phones, the same way cameras are, and we can expect to see a "location component" in other devices. They're already starting to appear in PDAs. Now all we need are a few good ideas on how to use location.
The first ideas, of course, were from the telephone companies' marketing departments, and showed that curious disconnect from reality that I always associate with phone companies. According to them, as I walk past a store my phone would beep and email me a coupon for use in that store. This insane idea fell by the wayside once cellular companies realized that no user in their right mind would ever use a cellphone again after a single trip to the mall.
For a fascinating look at some new ideas on how to use location as a component, in ways that make sense, and might actually provide some value to the user, here's a list of experimental services for cellular phones and wireless Internet connections.
Topics: · design · internet · marketing · privacy · technology
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