"Must-haves" of a location system for consumers

The usefulness and usability of location-based services is being hampered by the slow performance, poor accuracy and sporadic coverage of location systems such as GPS, A-GPS and cellular tower triangulation.

Mobile consumers did not trust previous versions of location-based systems and applications because of these inherent flaws in underlying positioning technologies.

A solution that every mobile consumer deserves: Skyhook Wireless' hybrid positioning system (XPS)

• Accuracy of 10m to 20m - whether indoors or outdoors, urban or rural
• Position lookups of less than 1 second
• The most extensive coverage

XPS dramatically improves the performance of existing location-based services and applications, while also enabling an entire new set of solutions for mobile consumers.

As shown below, XPS and Skyhook's Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) have already been incorporated into a broad range of applications and services.

Navigation

Case Studies: SiRF, Navteq, iRiver

Navigation applications and services have become widespread worldwide in the last two years. In 2007, Garmin and TomTom sold more than 10 million personal navigation devices (PNDs) each - a huge increase from the 2.9 million PND units shipped in the United States alone in 2006.

Excellent performance is now required in all the environments to which these millions of PNDs can travel. GPS powers the majority of today's navigation devices, but its performance is limited indoors and in urban areas. Currently, the number one customer complaint to navigation providers is that it can take up to two minutes to get an initial location fix. One navigation device manufacturer stated anecdotally that 80 percent of customer care calls concern those first two minutes. Once GPS does have a fix, loss of signal or 'fly-away' positioning in urban areas continues to frustrate users.

Navigation devices enabled with XPS can provide time-to-fix (TTF) of less than a second and high accuracy, regardless of the surrounding environment. XPS can also power navigation and point-of-interest look-ups on non-GPS-enabled mobile devices, creating new opportunities for application developers.

Communication and Social Networking

Case Studies: AIM, Socialight, MyLoki

• Alice: "Where are you?"
• John: "Shopping downtown. Want to meet up?"
• Alice: "Sure. Where are you heading next?"

Some of the most frequent interactions in mobile communications are tied to physical location. A location-determination and sharing feature can automatically let friends, colleagues, and peers know one another's whereabouts. Specific features - such as proximity alerts, integrated mapping, navigation, and shared location-tagging - transform communication channels into interactive social networking tools.

With pinpoint accurate position information, consistent quality-of-service and quick location lookups, XPS dramatically improves the end-user experience - driving adoption and uptake of these services.

Moreover, XPS extends the addressable market for location-based communications from GPS-enabled devices to a broad range of mobile handsets and devices. Laptop-based IM, nomadic VOIP handsets, Wi-Fi-only portable media players, dual-mode handsets and Web-based social-networking sites can all benefit from accurate and reliable location information.

Content Access

Case Studies: Socialight

Search results, news, entertainment information, point of interest data, and other online content become more useful when placed within the context of a user's location. Users benefit because they can quickly get timely and targeted information based on their exact location, whether at home or on the road. Advertisers and content providers both benefit from the higher ad revenues generated by location-based ads. Mainstream applications such as Google Maps, Yelp, and Flickr's geo-tagged photos are putting this type of location-based Web content in the spotlight.

Using the Wi-Fi Positioning capabilities of XPS and the Loki API, Skyhook can location-enable any Web site with just a few lines of JavaScript. When users allow their location to be shared with content providers, the latter can tailor the information and advertising on the site specifically to the former's location. This provides users with more relevant experiences that will keep them coming back to those sites, and ultimately generates greater advertising revenue for content providers and their sponsors.

Local Search and Advertisting

Case Studies: Loki

Businesses are increasingly using the Internet to market goods and services to their local customers. Market research analysts at Borrell have projected that local business' online ad spend will explode to $4 billion in 2010, compared to just $420 million in 2006. Major players such as AOL, Google, Yahoo, Ask, and Microsoft have all jumped into this market and launched local versions of their sites. New players, directional media sites such as Yellowpages.com, and vertical local sites such as Yokel and ShopLocal, are also providing new types of localized content.

Skyhook's XPS technology enables better penetration of the local advertising market by bringing the benefits of proven location-based marketing techniques to both local businesses and advertisers. XPS eliminates the need to rely solely on browsing patterns or keyword search to determine individual preferences and target ads. Instead, it enables search and advertising companies to easily identify user location and offer products and services within that context.

Skyhook's own location-enabled browser toolbar, Loki, demonstrates the power of ad placement in the context of location. By integrating Google Adsense advertisements based on the users' locations into Loki, Skyhook has seen an amazing five percent click-through rate on the ads. By combining the user's location with contextually-relevant location ads, Loki is generating click-through rates that are ten times higher than those of standard text-based ads.

Gaming

Case Studies: Plundr

The fusion of mobile devices, role-based games, large multiplayer platforms, and location awareness opens up a whole new realm of possibilities for game developers. With interactive formats that use the user's actual location as a key variable, moving from one physical place to another can unlock game levels, expose clues, create 'occupied' territories, or any number of innovative concepts.

XPS gives developers flexibility and a significant addressable market by helping to location-enable game platforms (such as Nintendo DS and Sony PSP), laptops, and smart phones. It also gives developers more predictable and reliable location functionality in those places where gamers most often play - indoors and in metropolitan areas.