GPS World, February 2014

NEWSLETTER EXCERPT Wireless LBS Insider A Positive Year for Location Industry 2013 was an up and down roller coaster of a year for the location industry and 2014 appears to be more of the same What was the big story Google buying Waze While it is easy to predict what will happen its harder to predict when it will happen With that in mind LBS Insider reached out to industry veterans to discuss the big buzz in 2013 in the industry and what the future holds next year and beyond By Kevin Dennehy I ts that time of year to assess the big deals and trends good bad and ugly in the worldwide location industry Some of the stories seem obvious such as the Google acquisition of Waze for more than 1 billion The valuation remains a mystery to many in the mapping community but it is always nice to see a truly great exit in this business There havent been enough for an industry that is both foundational in mobile and online and really hard to do well said Marc Prioleau president of Prioleau Advisors Prioleau said one of the big stories of 2013 was the reemergence of Apple Maps For all the flak they took theyve worked hard to make them better Their default position in iOS has given them traffic as has the extension to OSX in the Mavericks release he said Last year you saw Apple start to buy companies that could extend the features like HopStop a sign that they think theyve fixed the major problems and are working on moving forward They are also hiring aggressively and have brought in some very good people Last year Prioleau predicted that the combination of data with location to derive better location based context would be a big thing I think a lot has happened in that area with much more to come Its happening in apps see Foursquare recommendations advertising PlaceIQ and others CRM SAP Precision retailing as an example he said There is a lot more to come here and we should expect many new applications most of which will do things badly but some likely the ones with the most targeted data will do things that really change the model Prioleau said MapBox is making mapping cool again he is a director at the company Just when all was going to be subsumed by the Google Maps juggernaut MapBox is doing new interesting data visualization work he said Crowdsourcing being embraced by the wider mapping community is another big trend Prioleau has identified Everyone knows about OSm but then you add Waze for crowdsourcing real time traffic plus map corrections Google is in deep with MapMaker and even Nokia is pushing crowdsourced input he said Its no longer the battle between crowdsourced maps and professional maps Its how to make the two work together Prioleau sees the location industry having a few benchmarks in 2014 Ill stick with the same prediction as last year Data location for better location context Google Now is a great benchmark he said Break out in location based ad targeting The technology is better and the providers really understand the advertising market now Complementary ad technologies like Real Time Bidding are maturing and these will fit in to a model that really works And if for no other reason if we keep predicting it it will be right one year right Prioleau believes Google Map domination will begin to show cracks Google has a great platform but as they monetize it more aggressively more companies will look for alternatives he said Apple maps will be one HERE will be another But solutions from MapBox and others will grow as well Another industry insider Mike Dobson president of TeleMapis said 2013 was a quiet year for location based services Even the biggest deal Googles acquisition of Waze does not look as if it will have much impact other than as a defensive strategy Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the year was the stream of patents covering LBS and GIS like applications from both Apple and Google not to mention those of several start ups he said Read the full column at gpsworld com editorials COPYRIGHT 2014 NORTH COAST 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