SpotRank Experience
Integrating SpotRank with real time activity and events provides a unique view into what's happening now. Through the use of geotagged mobile activity, we can observe the dynamic ways in which crowds adapt to their environment. For example, Skyhook teamed up with the San Francisco Marathon to see how the fans interact with the runners along the course, the most popular viewing spots, and the lively post race activities. Through the SpotRank experience, people from anywhere in the world can virtually participate in the event.
Similarly with the Country Music Award Festival, SpotRank could determine which bands were playing at which stages—and even how excited the audiences were — simply by searching the tweets aggregated on Skyhook's map for specific band names and for certain punctuation, such as exclamation points. Of course, the data on Skyhook's maps is made anonymous and can't be tracked to individual mobile users.
SpotRank Example Applications
Restaurants
You want people to reference your app when they're looking for a great place to eat. Use SpotRank as a new factor in restaurant recommendations. Say a user wants a quiet cafe. You can point them to restaurants with five star reviews in inactive Spots. If you have a user looking for a restaurant reservation in downtown Boston on a Saturday at 8 pm, you could use SpotRank's inactive Spots to suggest the best restaurants where there's least likely to be a wait without a reservation.
- This is a spoon.
Nightlife
Within nightlife apps, it's killer to make solid recommendations about which clubs and bars are hot. But it's hard to predict where people are going out on a given night. Rather than wandering in and out of empty bars, SpotRank's Compass can tell you that a club two blocks east will be packed in the next hour. That way you can get there early and avoid the lines. If you're in a random city on a Sunday night and have no idea where it's fun to hang out, you can follow the SpotRank Compass to the hottest area with the best bars.
- Find crowds like this faster.
Social Networking
SpotRank can change the way you allocate check-in points. Give 10 points for going to a bar in an active area if you want to incentivize partying. Or, take advantage of SpotRank to compensate for a lack of a high volume of users in your app. Even though check-in apps like Gowalla are popular, you can still go to big events like baseball games and see only 10 other people checked-in to the venue. They can provide trending data about venues via SpotRank without having a large number of users at that spot.
- Find crowds like THIS faster.
Area-Based Promotions
SpotRank creates the opportunity for advertisers to synchronize crowds at multiple similar venues, without the expense of a physical presence at each. It's good for an advertiser to know that there's a throng of people at the Barking Crab bar in Boston at 5:30 pm on Friday. But it's even more interesting to know that there are hundreds of people in the same neighborhood all drinking at happy hour. Sam Adams could use SpotRank to serve mobile, time restricted promotions such as buying a free round for players at a participating bar. Captain Morgan could raffle off a beach vacation to one lucky winner at the most active bar in Boston on a Saturday night.
- Coordinate marketing efforts around town.
Avoid Crowds & Gaming Crowded Places
There are some places no one wants to go to when it's crowded. SpotRank can suggest the best times to head to stressful places, like the DMV and the grocery store. The DMV might be least crowded Tuesdays at 2 pm, and the grocery store Sundays at 10am. But, sometimes you just need to go a place when you know it will be packed. On school vacations the Children's Museum in Boston is always bustling. But parents could use SpotRank to determine which hours are generally the worst to visit, and plan their trips at the least active hours.
- Get away from these people.
Creative Marketing
Street teams, street sign holders, and advocates looking for signatures on petitions can waste a lot of time standing on streets with no foot traffic. Say Wrigley's is promoting a new gum flavor by hiring street teams in Boston to stand on corners and hand out samples. Wrigley's would typically assign street staff to traditionally busy places, like train stations at rush hour. By applying SpotRank data to the gum marketing campaign, Wrigley's would learn that Boston's three hottest weekend spots are 11 am on Boylston and Arlington, 3-5 pm on Hanover and Atlantic, and 10 pm in Faneuil Hall. By only assigning staff to hand out gum samples at these three locations at the hottest hours, Wrigley's would reach more people faster and ultimately save money by increasing the efficiency of their marketing campaign.
- That's Mr. Clean.
Apartment Hunting
You may have found the perfect condo to rent on Boston's quaint Chestnut Street in Beacon Hill. But did you notice 75 Chestnut, the local bar and restaurant across the street that gets packed on weekend nights? Or the bustling private school around the corner? Applying SpotRank data to real estate information paints a more complete picture of what the day-to-day activity in your new neighborhood really looks like.
- This refrigerator is not nearly shiny enough.