The problem with location based services!

I heard probably the 20th pitch from a company this week labeling their business as location based services ("LBS"). My colleague Matthias and I both had the same reaction!. Get the basics right! There's a major problem with anything labeled as location based services. It's called the USER, better known as your hopefully soon-to-be PAYING CUSTOMER.

Here's the issue. Most users are lazy. Or better they're simply technologically inept. Finally, they all have different devices. The worst of your problems is the laziness. The user wants technology that is easy to use. They don't want to fiddle with their device to get your service working. They also won't go the extra mile to make your technology work. If they can't start and forget about it, you've lost them. If you want your location based service to be successful, you have to figure out how I as the user (let's by hypothetical) install or activate your technology once and never again. It also has to be super easy and don't over-estimate my capabilities when it comes to using my mobile phone. Treat me like the person who's holding a mobile phone in their hands for the first time. I dislike clicks and above-mentioned laziness creeps in quickly around the 4th or 5th click and I'll slip away. Just consider you competition to be the SMS functionality of the phone. Outside of actually writing the SMS, the user clicks two, maybe three times to get to the point where she starts writing the SMS.  

Your next problem is that the user is probably a total idiot in regards to technology. (I am not mocking the user here....this is simply a reality and has nothing to do with their personality....love your customer!) Don't expect them to buy some kind of Bluetooth GSM device if it's not integrated into their device (they won't know how to pair it with the phone). Also don't expect them to be able to configure their phone beyond the absolute basics. Further, never infer that they even know what kind of platform they are using on their device or what kind of phone they exactly have. Your service has to be completely intuitive, pre-installed or easily installed and self-configuring. Once the you have the user actually using your service make sure it really is working. Even if you get past the really hard barrier of actually having the user past the getting started stage, you have to hook them in. If your service crashes or in some way doesn't work as expected, the user will run. They won't know how to tune the technology or find workarounds. At this point, laziness also tends to creep in when you expect them to think for you.

If you want to see how people don't really know how to use devices, see here. This is less to do with LBS but more so to do with usability. People  have trouble finding the power button on devices. You expect them to figure out location based services? 

Finally, and this one always blows my mind as a gadget geek, don't ever expect your user to have the newest technology. I personally always know about the newest devices and technologies out there. But I'm a gadget geek and most people think we're strange. This is reality. Your typical user probably has a two or three year old phone. She isn't compelled in any way to really upgrade here or even worse, can't afford to. Finally, most people don't yet upgrade their devices to use a new service. They just aren't used to this type of behaviour yet when it comes to the mobile world. The media might want you to believe this is so but it simply isn't and won't be so for at least three to five years. This means your service has to work on all the new devices but even worse, all the older devices. Do the math....this is a lot of companies with different models, different platforms, different user interfaces and form factors. It's a real drag to make your service standardised yet usable on every device out there. Definitely spend the money on good developers who know the mobile world and this problem well.

I love location based services or at least the idea of such services. I have yet to see a compelling enough pitch though to put my money to work. I am looking for the company that first and foremost does the basics. Take the idea of presence (or a buddy locater as it's called by all the media.......I really do hate the word "buddy" though), and run with it. Get a great service up that let's me find my friends (with zero effort from me) and let's my friends know were I am and go from there. Once you have this working perfectly (as well as scaling in usage numbers) add on top. Getting the basics nailed is the key here. It really is simply focusing and excelling on your core business......connection of a user's location with a service.