Wait... People don't love location based apps? | Hacker News Reader

Wait... People don't love location based apps?

blog.urbantag.com

7 pointsakitchell8 comments

a teaser of whats to come from @urbantag

Most people don't have ongoing location discovery needs that would cause them to consistently engage with location based apps and services. People find the things that are compelling to them and then they tend to move on. People who live in cities, often the prime target for LBS, are often well aware of lots of great things to do around them.

Prime candidates for ongoing engagement with LBS are: people who travel a lot, people who are hungry for new and interesting stuff but don't know where it is , and people who are new to city (even here engagement will be limited).

I was just involved in a conversation about location-based advertising and maps, which kind of revolved around the issue that an interest in (or presence at) a location isn't necessarily tied to purchase intent (or other behaviors.)

For instance, hotels are famous for spending big $ for pay-per-click advertising. On the other hand, the fact that I'm looking at a map of an area or even if I'm roaming around in an area doesn't mean I'm necessarily interested in booking a hotel (perhaps I already did or I'm staying with a friend.)

If you think about a really busy urban area, there are thousands of things that I ==might== take an interest in within a half-mile radius. Winnowing all through that is a meaningful way is a difficult problem, and it might all be for naught if there's something ==really== cool that's 2 mile away and that's outside the radius the system is scanning.

The glass is half-full ;-) but here's the thing, location is just a feature that enabled more interesting apps. Building your app/business around location alone is not enough to keep people using your app.

Good call. Mirrors my behaviour, after thinking about it.

It's early days with location awareness. We're still at the, "Ooh shiny" stage.

Location awareness is something to build on. But not the fact that I'm 823m from something, somewhere. To be useful, there needs to be much to it than that.

I've been wanting some way to figure out what things people LIKE ME are doing that are trending right now. If there were people checking into bars all around NYC tonight with tags like "crowded" or "the hipsters are out" or "popped collars" or "quiet" or "divey vibe", I would be paying a lot more attention.

I want to be able to find the best deals near me for lunch or activity but I do not want to constantly use location based services.

They're still too inconvenient and specialized. Waiting for GPS signal = fail.

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