Location enables mobile commerce, marketing, social and search.  But privacy allows it all to happen.  Transparency, control and choice are key to any location use.  Every Chief Location Officer knows this.  Here’s a quick refresher:

Rule #1: You need permission to locate a mobile device. Permission, often called opt-in (from our old email marketing days), can be obtained in multiple ways, from a user tap on a device to replying Y to an SMS request to signing a contract or agreeing to utilize a service.  As long as the location use is clearly explained and well understood.

Despite the widespread coverage of privacy concerns in the media and the seemingly top-of-the-agenda efforts by our Congressmen, most mobile users are comfortable using mobile services that actively tap their location.  Most people do opt-in, most people allow apps to “use your current location.”  Location makes the app or service work better, improves results and value, and makes life easier for many of us.

So long as location is not abused.

Ever since the first app was launched in 2007, mobile users’ privacy rights regarding the collection, storing, and sharing of their personal data have been relatively ill-defined, but broadly respected, by the developer community.

Recent events have shed greater light on the need for standardized privacy policies and disclosure to protect users’ privacy.  There are hundreds of thousands of apps and developers who follow the very best-in-class location policies and guidelines.  But a few awkward examples (and bad apples) can spoil it for the whole app orchard.  Last year, for example, Path was caught uploading users’ address books to its servers without those users’ knowledge. Another popular app, Color, soon was under scrutiny for being able to literally tap in to users’ microphones without their permission, and CarrierIQ was found to be collecting data on users’ keystrokes, texts sent, and numbers dialed.

But the majority of developers large and small do not want to shake the trust of their loyal customers.  With scrutiny on the rise, mobile apps are quick to point out that they don’t spend their time reading users’ texts or checking out their address book for fun, it’s solely for data collection to help enhance their product.  Organizations such as the MMA and the CTIA have helpful guidelines for developers on LBS (location-based services), how to obtain consent form users, when to notify them, and the like.  But many felt such industry guidelines and self-policing antics were not enough.

Enter privacy policies. The need for enforceable codes of conduct and open disclosure for mobile applications have arisen. The Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) and the Center for Democracy and Technology released a publication with titled Best Practices for Mobile Application Developers. The paper includes guidelines and tips for making privacy policies comprehensive and easy to access for users, highlighting full disclosure to users and secure connections as must-haves.

Some companies (like mine, Locaid, the world’s largest Location-as-a-Service company offering a location API for developers), have been following (and indeed, setting), conservative privacy policies and rules for years.  We welcome the new publications from policy setting groups.  Any CLO should.  Publications such as these are the first step towards standardizing privacy control for mobile applications, and federal rules and regulations are not far behind.   And for those looking to incorporate mobile location into apps, companies who use Locaid‘s location information technology won’t need to change a thing. Why? Locaid realized the importance users’ privacy from the beginning, and developed an iron-clad privacy policy that is third-party certified, protects users’ data, and easy to understand.

Highlights of Locaid’s Privacy Policy include:

• Locaid requires developers to have consent from users of their location data collection.
• Locaid requires that this consent collected via a comprehensible and non-misleading vehicle
• Locaid encrypts location information when stored or transmitted by Locaid to ensure it doesn’t get into the wrong hands, and requires its subscribers to do the same.

OMG!  Just lost $$$ 4 grand on Draw Something!  Didn’t get the cartoon of Chris Christie.  Yikes!  Went back to my spacious cornfield suite (in the Farmville Tower).  Tomorrow I am sticking to poker while touring Hoover Dam.

That’s a Tweet from me, four years from now.  Right after Zynga opened up their monster casino on the strip, where Excalibur used to stand sentry.  Sounds outrageous?  The groundwork is already underway.

How did this happen?

The answer is something you hold to your head everyday: your phone.  While most of the gaming industry focuses on yesterday’s major computing cycle, the Age of the Internet, the next wave of operators is busy changing the game.  Those players, Facebook and Zynga included, are riding today’s tectonic computing transformation: the Age of Mobile.

Too many of the old guard are still focused on the last wave, the Internet, what we technologists call “THE HOW.”  How as in how consumers access content and services…bricks and clicks, cookies and browsers, Macs and PCs.  The new guard is focused on “THE WHERE.”  They are knee deep in what Kleiner Perkins’ star analyst Mary Meeker calls the “fifth major computing cycle of mankind,” the Age of Mobile.

What matters in this age of mobile?  Not how, but where.

Zynga figured it out back in 2012.  We live in a mobile society, always on the go.  There are more mobile phone subscribers in the US than there are citizens.  Of the 7 billion people on this planet, 6.1 billion own a mobile device.  And more of those devices are smart phones, phones that can do just about anything your computer can do.

Zynga got mobile games, but virtual money didn’t drive real profits.  So they turned to the mobile device and realized that the phone in your pocket or purse has the ability to collect and stream all kinds of information about you: the calls you make, the sites you visit, what you Tweet and Like.  And while all this behavioral data is helpful for serving ads and pushing coupons, Zynga found the gold in the phone: at any time, that device knows precisely where you are.

Real-time location data is the most valuable and engaging aspect of the Age of Mobile.  Location-Based Services (LBS) are transforming every industry. Credit card issuers like VISA use mobile location to battle fraud.  Logistics companies like FedEx use location to track shipments. Big brands like Kohl’s and Miller Coors use mobile location to improve marketing campaigns.

Zynga and Facebook realized early on that mobile location would revolutionize the way we play games and place bets.

Used to be you had to be physically sitting at the card table to place a wager, or standing at the lottery machine to buy a lotto ticket.  No longer.  New Jersey, Illinois and more states in 2012 were moving to legalize mobile gambling, and allowing operators to take bets on a customer’s own smartphone.  (Disclosure: my company Locaid provides authenticated location to the only smartphone gaming apps approved by the Nevada Gaming Control Board.)

Zynga figured out that location was a critical lynchpin in the new gaming ecosystem.  They predicted the day when the house takes more bets from customer smartphones than from the casino floor.  So Zynga (with a billion dollar loan from Facebook) decided to build a house, right on the strip.

Location-as-a-Service providers made it easy for Zynga and other gaming operators back in 2012.  Take geofencing.  Draw a circle around your casino or a perimeter around your state, and when your customer crosses your “fence,” they get an alert, such as an “OK to wager” message, or a promotion to visit your casino, or an incentive not to stray into your competitor’s house.  Mobile marketing with location geofencing adds rich context and much-desired relevance to a consumer relationship with your brand.

In highly regulated industries such as gaming and banking, location is complex and evolving.  And Zynga was an alien on Planet Vegas.  In Nevada, mobile gamers must be within state lines to place bets on their mobile phone.  Smartphone location (Wi-Fi and GPS) does not meet the requirements of the Nevada Gaming Control Board because these location sources are easily spoofed.  Network location sourced from the wireless carriers (the kind Locaid provides) cannot be spoofed by an app on the device.  This location, combined with geofencing, allowed gaming operators like Zynga to extend their books and games beyond the casino walls for the first time in US history.

In 2011, a historic first was achieved by Leroy’s: the first legal real money wager was placed on a smartphone in the state Nevada.  It was only a matter of time (and money) before Zynga and Facebook started negotiating with Trump and Wynn.

Zynga saw that the legalization of online gambling had the potential to create a multi-billion dollar market in the US, with many states eager to cash in on the revenue potential. Pair legalized online gambling with location-verified mobile gaming, and Zynga saw a huge, unchartered market.  That was in 2012.

Who else saw the opportunity in mobile and location back then?  AWI (now William Hill) was an early entrant.  But others were close behind.  With fraud protection and location verification, geofencing’s role in mobile gaming’s bulging market was destined to play a crucial role to ensure compliance and safety for all players, while ensuring all gamers within state lines can get a piece of the action from the comfort of their living room, car, or favorite bar.

Perhaps it’s not too late for the major gaming operators to take notice of mobile location.  Perhaps those that run the largest betting books in the country will realize that location verification via geofencing captures enormous value from the Age of Mobile.  Perhaps those CEOs and strategists have realized that the majority of consumers are constantly interacting with their phones, day in and day out

Zynga figured it out.  They did “Draw Something” back in 2012: they drew geofences around state borders, so they could start taking real money bets.  Is Caesarsville and ParisParisville far behind?

This article originally appeared on June 22, 2012 on TotallyGaming.com.

Do you remember cutting coupons? I do.  When I was a teenager I cut them for Mom and pocketed the savings for a new bike (from Sears, a ten speed that weighted fifty pounds).  For most (and anyone reading this blog), paper coupons are ancient history. Who has time for that anymore?  

Turns out, anyone with a mobile phone has time now, because mobile coupons take no time at all.  Coupons are making a new-and-improved comeback via your mobile phone, and marketing analysts are “cutting up” a huge chuck of mobile spend to the once lowly coupon.

Kudos to new mobile technologies.  Mobile coupons are a big focus of mobile advertising using near field communication (NFC) technology as one of many ways to increase store traffic. As discussed in last week’s post, hyper-local marketing via mobile advertising is on everyone’s radar, and mobile coupons are expected to rise with the tide. Mobile coupon spending is expected to grow eight-fold from $5.4 billion to $43 billion by 2016 (Juniper Research).

Why Mobile Coupons?
Living Social, Google, Coupons Inc., and Discover have all spoken to their current focus on mobile coupons via NFC. They want to make coupons faster and easier for us consumers to use. Isn’t technology grand?

Currently, coupons or vouchers can be redeemed 2 ways. First is the good ol’ fashioned printing or cutting out of the coupon for the cashier to scan, which triggers the discount. Second is pulling the coupon up on your smartphone, revealing a QR code or a barcode for the cashier to scan. Neither of these are that seamless, as they require the consumer and cashier to do multiple steps. And as we know, consumers don’t like multiple steps.

This is where NFC technology comes in. With a simple tap of your smartphone against an in-store station, your coupons are automatically redeemed – no barcodes required! Additionally, with the development of mobile payments such as Google Wallet, a single tap of your smartphone will both redeem coupons and run the transaction against your credit card. Tap and go. Talk about seamless!

Advantages of Mobile Coupons for Customers:

• No scissors required. You can’t run with scissors, but you can run with your smartphone to redeem the coupon that just popped up!
• Less waste. Mobile coupons are digital, meaning less paper waste.
• Coupons will be fun. Before, coupons were reserved for household items, such as ketchup, cat food, and cleaning agents. Snooze. Now, coupons sent to you can have the variety of daily deal sites, with discounts on social outings and fun local events, all with seamless redemption.
• They will be targeted to YOU. Mobile coupons, like mobile advertising, will be tailored to you. For example, you can sync your phone to your loyalty membership program (club card) at your grocery store. Your purchase history can then be used to offer mobile coupons on products you may like, introducing you to new products. This is like the “Netflix Recommends” feature of mobile coupons, which has always lead to good discoveries for me.

Advantages of Mobile Coupons for Merchants:

• Secure. Mobile coupons can’t be duplicated.
• High redemption rates. Mobile coupons have redemption rates as high as 30%, vs paper coupon’s 2%.
• Excellent tracking. Instant access to who redeemed the coupons, where they were, and at what time.
• Instant insight into ad campaigns. Instantly see how successful a coupon campaign is and who it’s working with.
• Low Cost. Digital coupons are less expensive to distribute than paper.
• Enhanced data. Redemption data will be linked to purchase history and customer type, allowing for more precise research and future campaigns.

So, say goodbye to your scissors and coupon organizer. They are soon to be relics from the pre-smartphone age that future generations will never believe. I picture them picking up a coupon book, blowing dust off of it, and asking me, “What is this specimen?” Mobile coupons, I welcome your seamless money-saving discounts with open arms.

That’s right, the Boys Scouts have gone location, and it is taking the troops by storm.  You thought the location buzz at SXSW was at a fevered pitch?  Check into your local Boy Scout jamboree and “be prepared,” geolocation is the campfire rage.

Merit Badge

Perhaps too many scouts were bringing smartphones on their orienteering trips. Or too many scout leaders were checking into FourSquare during campouts.  Or perhaps the Boys Scouts is continuing its long tradition of preparing our youth for the future.  Whatever the reason, Chief Location Officer “likes” this merit badge.

What does the geocaching patch signify?  It means a scout has “acquired the skills necessary to safely take part in the world of geocaching.”  (Chief Location Officer didn’t realize geocaching was so dangerous.)  Of course, you still have to learn how to use a map and compass.  But doesn’t that patch look cool?  Like a Nintendo DS video game.  Location can be fun.

When I was in the scouts, earning a badge was no picnic.  The geocaching merit badge is no slouch either.  What do you need to learn to earn a geocaching badge?

• Precautions necessary to have a safe time while searching for geocaches
• Geocaching etiquette and how the principles of Leave No Trace apply
• Geocaching terms
• How GPS technology works
• Steps for finding and logging a cache
• How to use geocaching.com, the official online home of geocaching.

• Click here for the PDF of the final, official requirements.

Chief Location Officer applauds the Boy Scouts of America for recognizing that our youth are growing up in a world where mobile location plays an important role, whether it be in the woods, in school, in business or in our daily lives.

The merit badge includes one of the best taglines in the location industry: “Leadership with Direction.”

We could all use some of that.

Thanks to Bryan Wendell and John Churchill of the Boy Scouts of America and Simon Salt for the heads-up on this location badge.

CLO Advice: Location is the single most important data export from your mobile device, whether it be a feature phone, smartphone, or now, “paper-phone.”

A prototype flexible smartphone made of electronic paper and created by Canadian researchers, can do all the things bulkier smartphones can do such as make and take calls, send messages, play music or display e-books.

It’s a weird amalgam of the oldest in retro and the latest in high tech.

It looks retro, kind of like the tabs they put on top of folders, back when folders were made of paper and tabs were made of plastic. Cast your mind back. Way back. Add to that the way you use it—by bending it like paper.

But it’s smokin’ high tech too. It uses the same e-Ink technology as the Kindle so it should be easy for my old eyes to read. And you activate it by it using bend gestures (which sounds like yoga or something you do while driving in Italy) that interact with a flexible printed circuit with bend sensors.

You can only imagine the kind of havoc a two year old could wreak with it. Bend—call the boss. Squish—make a video of Dad trying to grab the phone back. Wiggle—forward all my emails to random addressees. Imagine what teenagers will look like playing video games. That, of course, will be part of its charm.

Imagine the potential if you add location information to the mix. Dedicate one of those pages to mobile coupons, mobile ads, real-time traffic, and so on.

And will it be easier to use and fold up than a gas station map?

Full article here: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/paperphone-cellphone-future/story?id=13535486

http://zapp5.staticworld.net/images/article/2011/05/paperphone-5171215.jpg