Social Geotagging

Location Based Services are based on a phenomena called GeoTagging. GeoTagging has developed due to the increasing availably of GPS capable devices and the rapidly growing numbers of online location projects, activities and applications.

In 2008 markets are poised to achieve a critical mass in the availability of GPS enabled consumer devices and smartphones. Smartphone sales in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) totaled 11.7 million units in the first quarter of 2008, a 38.7 percent increase from the first quarter of 2008. In North America, smartphone sales totalled 7.3 million units in the first quarter of 2008, a 106.2 percent increase from the same period last year*. While Nokia alone expects to sell 35 Million GPS enables phones in 2008**

“Despite economic concerns, the smartphone market continued to expand in the United States, driven by heavy advertising and strong marketing promotions as more devices reached mass market price points,” said Hugues De La Vergne, principal analyst for mobile terminals research at Gartner, based in Dallas, Texas. “North American operators are giving these devices strong support, as they provide higher average revenue per unit (ARPU). We expect operators to continue to make these devices the focus of 2008 promotions.

The new Apple iPhone reflects the convergence of services and applications that the new generation of handsets allow. Not only is it GPS enabled but is re-branding .Mac to MobileMe and is developing a new set of Web 2.0 tools to manage online content. Gizmodo writes, "MobileMe stores your info up in the cloud so you can get to it anywhere using any of your devices -- Mac, PC, iPhone. It will push information up and down to keep everything up-to-date all the time”***.

It is clear that increasing device capabilities leads to a different way of consuming product. In France and Germany, nearly half of smart-phone owners sent video or a photo over the network, compared with a market average of 18.6 percent in France, and 19.5 percent in Germany. Nearly a quarter of UK smart-phone owners reported listening to music on their handset, versus the average of 5.8 percent. The parallels are similar across the geographies. French smart-phone owners are a staggering 11 times more likely to listen to music on their handset compared with the market average of 1.7 percent, while their American counterparts are more than

* Gartner (May 2008)
** Nokia 08 May 2008
*** Information Week 09 May 2008

eight times more likely to do so.

There is no doubt that more capable devices compel their owners to use mobile content. Varying by networks in the UK, 45 to 70 percent of N-70 users report that they used their phone to download or browse for content," said Paul Goode, vice president and senior analyst, M:Metrics. "We're seeing impressive conversion rates across all forms of mobile content among users of these handsets, and see a direct correlation between device attributes (screen size, screen resolution and network speed) and propensity to consume content." *.

The availability of technologically capable devices has reached a critical mass. And in turn users are more inclined to utilize network or data services. But this trend is but one side of the story. The other is the rapid uptake of web based mapping activities. From outdoor adaptations of the old fashioned treasure hunt i.e. GeoCaching www.geocaching.com to compelling browser based products such as Google Earth.

But for every Google Earth there is a dozen hopefuls trying out their models.