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The Evolution Of Mobile Advertising Banners | Part One: The Creative Possibilities Of The Accelerometer

Murat — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:23:08 +0000

What do you picture when you hear the words “mobile advertising banners”? Probably some 2 or 3 frame, unengaging, pixelated GIF that reminds you of the web in the 1990s. While it’s true they often get a better click through rate than online, this is usually down to the fact that it’s the largest graphical element on the mobile screen.

Mobile banners haven’t really changed much in the last 4 years, however phones have improved beyond recognition with faster processors, 3G capabilities and better screens. However just as important is the improvement in handset targeting by advertising networks, this enables mobile websites to serve ads based on the capabilities of each phone model – so basically serving better ads to better phones.

As you know the mobile landscape is changing, Apple and Google both are now owners of the hardware, software and advertising networks. This means they completely control the mobile advertising eco-system for their handsets, free from the constraints that have handicapped creativity in this part of the industry for so long.

In the future advertising units & banners will have access to features on the phone, either through Flash, Flash Lite or HTML5. We’ve already seen Google’s ‘Near Me Now’ function on its website which directly accesses the phones GPS unit to provide shops and restaurants nearby. I think it’s only a matter of time before we see the accerometer used in the same way.

For those of you who don’t know, the accelerometer is the component in the phone which measures tilt, motion, shaking and swinging. It is responsible for sensing if the handset is portrait or landscape and switches the display accordingly. The iPhone was arguably the first real phone to ultilise it fully within its user interface and applications.

Aaaand did you know that Flash Lite 3.0 already has the power to access to data from the accelerometer on phones such as the Nokia 5800? Flash developers head here and here for example code. Oh and Flash Lite works WITHIN the browser so the following examples can be done today! (I’ll be covering this more in my next post)

Enough talking fool, show me some examples!

So what kind of unique, engaging, mobile-only experiences could you create using this technology?

Here are some examples of online banners that would fit perfectly with the accelerometer and the mobile web. These are a mixture of Flash banners and whole page takeovers, they inspired me and hopefully they’ll get your imagination and creative juices flowing about the possibilities of mobile advertising.

Wario Shake It

This is absolutely perfect for mobile, shaking your phone to set off all the elements falling. Plus Flash Lite has access to the vibration on the phone so this could shake the phone too!. Check it out here

Fiat ABS Banner

Imagine interacting with this by tilting your phone. Great Ad.

Fiat Engine Power Banner

Another great banner. Simple but effective, could be activated by tilting the phone.

Gulliver Used Car Banner

This banner advertises used car trading, hence the continuous swapping of drivers. Imagine flipping your phone upside down to interact.

Burger King – Banner Of Doom

Probably the greatest banner of all time. As the screen begins to shake, so could the phone (this functionality is available in Flash Lite). Click here to view.

The functionality to create all this stuff is already available but nobody seems to be taking to first steps and putting cool stuff out there even at proof of concept stage. When I get some time I’ll throw together a few real life examples and get it on video to put on the site.

Is The New iPhone About To Make Video Calling & Mobile TV Popular?

Murat — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:39:30 +0000

Update: Confirmed – the new iPhone has a front facing camera!

Updated: Wrote this post last year before the iPhone 3GS launch, obviously that version didn’t have video calling or mobile tv as its core features but could that change this year? I was a thinking a bit too far ahead last year but now it seems other blogs are mentioning the same thing.

Rumours (and screenshots) are flying round featuring a front facing iPhone camera…9to5Mac has a post with all the theories. Remember the iPhone can’t save video calling on its own, operators will need to create unlimited bundles with standard tariffs otherwise it’s not going to be able to sustain the initial uplift. Maybe this is the kick start video calling needs to begin lowering prices?

Check out the new image and original post below:

The new iPhone is due to be announced soon and I have the feeling that it’s about to change the way people use (and perceive) Video Calling and mobile TV. The two services desperately need a jump start and have been poorly received by consumers for years.

As a consumer I know that Mobile TV is very appealing, I can’t tell you the amount of times I have been out and wanted to catch the football or a episode of Californication. Even at my desk, I can’t be bothered to keep turning my head to watch the plasma and would gladly have a phone in front of me with the TV on. The proposition isn’t hard for the consumer to understand, it’s TV that you love and know…on your phone. Simple.

However the price has always been far too high , I’ve found that most people don’t know that their operator offers TV and the ones that do think it’s too expensive to take up. Currently the price sits at around £3 per month on Vodafone to £8.99 per month on Orange…That’s 35% of my line rental!

Video Calling is just as expensive, on Orange it costs 50p per minute to call someone on another network. Video Calling is a service I would dip in and out of but why would I ever bother at those prices? I know many things have been listed on why video calling isn’t popular, everything from unflattering camera angles to human nature but lets face it, cost is usually king and if it was free people would use it more. Plus video calling is aching for a sprinkling of decent Apple-style user experience.

Apple certainly has the power to tell networks that it wants consumers to be given unlimited video calling and Mobile TV tariffs with new iPhones. It’s my belief that when you take cost concerns out of the equation you can instantly change user behavior, that coupled with Apple user interface expertise could completely set a new standard for Mobile TV and Video Calling.

So would operators offer Mobile TV for free? Well we know that operators bend over backwards for Apple and news about the upgrades currently being done by networks is surfacing.

I once worked on a project which looked at inserting video ads inbetween Mobile TV programs which were different from what was being broadcast on actual TV. This meant that the ads could be more relevant for the mobile device and even use location. The ads can have mobile call to actions and click throughs which you can’t obviously do on a normal TV. Video ads generate a higher CPM than graphic and text ads so this could be the swaying point for operators.

Lets wait and see if Mobile TV and Video Calling appear on the new iPhone.

O2 Launch Mobile Advertising Network O2 More | Are Operators Starting To Feel Insecure?

Murat — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:26:05 +0000

This is a great follow up to my previous post about the problems with location-based SMS advertising.

Two weeks ago, O2 launched their very own SMS advertising network called O2 More. The opt-in program aims to “deliver highly personalised campaigns for advertisers and give customers access to a wide range of exclusive and relevant offers from over 50 leading brands.”

It works by the O2 customer signing up and filling out their age and interests online (picture below), O2 will also use their location and usage data:

What other information will be used for O2 More?

Only things we know about how you use your phone since you’ve been on O2. For example, if we know you download music to your phone, we may send you details of a music offer. We want to make the messages you receive from us as relevant as possible.

I dug around and found the O2 Sim card I used for the AQA vs 118188 test and signed up for O2 More. Check out the registration screen below (click to enlarge).

This is the first time one of the big four operators has opened up their customer data to brands and it’s probably long overdue. There’s no reason this couldn’t have been done years ago so why now? Are brands and consumer attitudes changing?

Shaun Gregory, managing director of O2 Media said in a statement:

“Mobile advertising has been slow to deliver on its promise. Much of that has been down to a lack of understanding, limited opportunities and no real accountability or measurement. O2 More is about to change all that and will spearhead the UK’s first truly personalized media business.”

Why Now?

I personally think that operators are seeing power shift over to manufacturers and are making (slightly vain) attempts to combat this. For a long time operators have been holding all the cards for targeted mobile advertising, they have your location, personal details (when you sign the contract) and even your browsing habits. But now everything has changed, advances in technology means that the handset can do all of this and more, putting the manufacturers in pole position.

Phones can use GPS for your location, online accounts for your personal information (like Facebook, Google etc) and can track your browsing habits just as well as the operators. This poses a problem for mobile networks because they are moving out of the profit loop.

But the most important thing to remember is that manufacturers control the user interface and experience. This means that advertising doesn’t just have appear in the browser or Applications, completely new ad-units can be created. Imagine the things you could do if you got the chance to start mobile advertising from scratch, on your own terms. Imagine the brains behind Apple and Google creating new ways to advertise that aren’t restricted to SMS or banners.

In the past operators took a cut of your profits if you wanted to make some money using things like premium rate SMS, LBS lookups or reverse billing. These days you can take payments from within a iPhone/Android/Blackberry App and the operator doesn’t get a penny. Imagine the amount of money that goes around the iPhone eco-system without O2 getting a sniff.

And what about ad serving? It’s allowed developers and publishers to turn over millions in revenue by pulling ads into their apps/mobile sites without any profits going to the networks. After Google paid $750 million for Admob, a business that relies on advertising on mobile networks, I wonder if operators wondered why they weren’t getting a more of the pie.

This is blatantly obvious with app stores. Vodafone and Orange have just launched their own. Why? What do they believe they can offer the marketplace that the manufacturers cannot? The answer is – not much, apart from confusing consumers. It’s totally ‘me too!’ behaviour with the purpose of slowing domination by manufacturers.

Anyway back to O2 More, one thing O2 does have is reach, they can target people who have low end phones just as well as the super duper ones because everything is reliant on the network rather than phone hardware. But when recent studies show that iPhone users spend more money you often wonder where you’re likely to get a higher ROI.

I’ve been signed up for O2 More for 3 weeks and I have yet to receive a promotion. Not really a good start.

Shaun Gregory, head of O2 Media, said: ‘It’s not about bombarding customers; it’s about providing true relevancy. If we have [an offer you'll enjoy] we’ll send it. If we don’t, we won’t.’ Gregory also swears you won’t receive more than one a day”

Maybe the ad inventory doesn’t match up to my personal preferences yet? One I get a SMS ad i’ll screen grab it and post it on the blog.

The Mobile Inc 'Mobile & Social Networking Predictions For 2010"

Murat — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 23:49:09 +0000

After feeling very left out by seeing tons of other blogs post their predictions for 2010, I decided to do my own and why not.

Here are some of my thoughts for the next 12 months.

Enjoy and discuss.

Mobile and Social Networking Predictions for 2010 By Mobile Inc

Why Location Based Coupons/Advertising Won't Work In Its Current Form

Murat — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:48:29 +0000

No sooner than my post about location about to become interesting for consumers, Techcrunch posted an article about a concept by AT&T for ‘on-the-go’ mobile coupons.

Ever since the dawn of time mobile marketers have been using the ‘Starbucks coupon’ example to sell the idea of location based coupons into brands and businesses. I’ve used it a few times because it’s the easiest way to explain to someone who’s ‘non-mobile’ about location and the possibilities.

The scenario goes like this, you sign up for a mobile coupon service, fill out your profile, ticking coffee and various other things as your interests. You walk past Starbucks one day and BAM, your mobile beeps and it’s a 20% discount SMS coupon for a cup of coffee. Then you stroll in, extremely happy and redeem your coupon. Win for you and a win for Starbucks.

This basically applies to the concept by operator AT&T, the idea is simple, as consumers walk around a city, they get mobile alerts whenever their favourite nearby stores and restaurants have a deal. It works by the mobile operator constantly monitoring the customers location (opt-in of course), then matching that info to available retailers to push coupons/info.

Sounds great, apart from one problem….it uses SMS.

Firstly you will never escape the fact that SMS advertising messages are intrusive. They arrive into your inbox just like personal messages, they don’t have a separate folder, they don’t arrive silently, they don’t generate a different on-screen alert or icon. Oh and if it’s a coupon, you can’t sort by expiry date.

Just like any consumer, I’m interested in around 100+ different brands, everything from clothing, electronics, all the way to peanut butter. Do I want discounts on these brands? Hell yes (I love those printed vouchers), gimme as much as possible. Do I want my phone beeping several times a day and my inbox filling up? Hell no.

No matter how targeted the coupon is, there is no way a location based SMS service can remain useful and scale to cover the amount of brands an average consumer likes without severely pissing them off, regardless of opting-in.

Often you’ll hear the answer “Well you can just set how many offers you want per day so you’re not inundated”, however it’s not the amount of offers that’s the problem ‘cos I want them all, it’s the way it’s delivered to the phone. SMS just isn’t the right technology to handle it. Anyway, no matter how über targeted that advert, it needs to find a way through a number of real life obstacles first.

Pushing adverts and coupons to people based on their location has so many variables involved to get a positive reaction. One of the 1000+ things to consider are – when did they last get paid? Are they in a hurry? Are they waiting for someone they met on Saturday night to text them back? All of these things will have a influence on the person receiving that coupon to a) not be pissed off and b) actually use it.

It’s clear that SMS ads can’t scale for the consumer but what about the advertiser? The costs for SMS and location lookups aren’t cheap. So how do you get small/medium sized businesses involved? Do you really want to keep getting offers from McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Nike all the time?

The consumer research I’ve done has made it clear that it’s not only variety of businesses and brands that’s important but the type of communication too. People don’t just want to be told about discounts in an effort to constantly part them with their money, it’s about things like free gigs, days out, local events and all that other stuff.

Research I was involved in at Nokia showed that even in emerging markets where people are more receptive to ads, SMS push advertising can still annoy the hell out of people.

The solution?

Looking towards the future, mobile coupons need seamless integration into the phone operating system. Especially with technologies like NFC coming into the mix. No downloads and no crap, just comes as standard like your SMS inbox. Pushing adverts is still the right solution because location based ‘pull’ is unrealistic.

What if you had another inbox for coupons that used your data connection? Always running in the background, it’s own entity on your phone, and constantly updated with proper coupon management.

When a coupon comes in you get a notification on your homescreen which contains the companies logo and offer info, then fades after a few seconds and then goes into your coupon wallet. You can sort coupons by expiry date and distance as well as get alerts if one is about to expire. You’ll even be able to control the way alerts sound and act.

If you take Tweetdeck on the PC/Mac as a example. The way it deals with large amounts of constantly updated information could provide some great learning’s for how coupon wallets should work for the average person who walks past dozens of shops every day.

Large detailed notifications provide enough information at a glance for you to decide to find out more info, it’s unobtrusive and has enough options to customise alerts so it doesn’t annoy you.

Here is a Tweetdeck notification:

Using this, I’ve come up with a coupon notification on the mobile phones homescreen:

Now lets look at how the Coupon Wallet might look:

The benefits over SMS are clear, a real solution for mobile coupons rather than a hack of a existing messaging technology.

The only company I can see delivering something like this is Google. Not only do they have a great mobile operating system which more and more handsets are adding everyday, but also the ad serving technology to easily enable small, medium and large businesses into location advertising. They mastered it with search advertising and they’ll do it with location too.

It’s not just about premium brands, it’s about huge inventory made up of small and medium sized businesses, allowing thousands of locations to push ads to users. Big brands are great if you live in a major city but there many high streets and towns that aren’t oozing with well known names. Just take a look at Google Local Business Centre, it’s so damn easy for a independent store to get involved in location and coupons, that’s how it needs to be.

Google have already started integrating coupons with maps, it’s very early days but businesses can use printed or mobile coupons with their company map placement. The way it works at the moment is by you actively searching for businesses in maps and if they have a coupon your in luck. But what if your in a area you already know? How will you find out coupon offers in your area? That’s where the Coupon Wallet idea comes in.

I’m eagerly waiting to see how this pans out, third parties like Cellfire will always have their applications but once it becomes a out-of-the-box mobile feature they’ll be in trouble. Whether it’s integrated with Mapping applications or stand-alone, it’s definitely coming.

Brand Guidelines Need To Evolve With Mobile..And So Do The MMA's

Murat — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:59:21 +0000

[Image by Scott Campbell]

Aside from doing the mobile marketing campaign stuff, I also spend a lot of time designing WAP sites and mobile banners for various promotions that require landing pages/advertising across different publisher sites. I’ve been making mobile banners since 2006 when I was at Enpocket and even though mobile has come a long way to become cemented in advertising and brand strategy, some things are still exactly the same as they were 3 years ago…there is a serious lack of love for the mobile banner.

If you work in advertising/creative in any shape or form you will have no doubt come across brand guidelines before, these are the documents provided to agencies, partners and freelancers to ensure that the company is represented clearly and consistently both inside and outside the organisation. This includes rules for print, outdoor and online, such as size of logo, spacing between elements, colours, tone of voice etc. The guidelines often need to followed to the letter otherwise any designs you’ve done will get thrown out during the brands internal sign off process. This is where the trouble begins…

I’ve made hundreds mobile banners and WAP sites, in that time I’ve seen brand guidelines include specifications for mobile just once - both for regular advertisers and those dipping their toes in. Instead you’re expected to apply the same rules and assets for online to any mobile designs. This causes a number of problems because in many cases, it’s impossible to do on mobile.

Mobile screens are small and banners are even smaller (as well as being highly restricted but more on that later). Meaning that any logos, graphics and mandatory slogans/copy often become illegible as they scale down. You would assume this allows you some leeway with getting designs approved, after all if you can’t make out half the things in the advert it’s pretty pointless.

Often the only way to fit something into a banner is by re-working some of the assets, such as making a portrait logo into landscape by moving the elements side by side or removing some copy heavy slogans. Nothing radical. But exceptions are rarely made by brand teams, partly because they don’t understand the limitations of mobile or have anything other than online to reference it against. This means they would rather let barely legible creative through the approval process than something that is clearer, more effective and likely to get a click. Once brand team sign-off the creative it usually goes live without anyone from the company checking it over again as responsibility is delegated. In the end you’re left with a banner that leaves you wondering “who is actually going to click on this thing?”.

Check out this logo I picked completely at random as an example:

The static banners above show the difference it makes by adapting for mobile. Would you rather have your advert unrecognisable but adhere to the guidelines? Or work on getting the best out of your money by considering how to adapt for the medium?

Some brands have logos, slogans and assets that luckily already work well for mobile but those who don’t can count the cost in a number of ways including:

The ad campaign doesn’t perform well, wasting money and affecting the brands confidence in spending money on mobile advertising again in the future.
The poor quality creative has a direct effect on the consumers perception of the brand, which is kinda ironic after the brand team signs it off.
The brands Competitors DO create mobile brand guidelines, making their ads look considerably better to the consumer.

Working on the ad-serving team at Nokia, I got to see how major ad campaigns were doing and it’s no surprise that click through rates have a direct correlation to the quality of creative. If I would have had all the banner creatives on the screen and hidden the results, you could have easily guessed which ones got the best CTR just by looking at the graphics. Obviously there are other elements involved in attracting the user to make that click but in my opinion the creative is the most important. If it wasn’t then everyone would just run text ads right? In Google’s own words, “Text is often useful, but sometimes videos and pictures are a more effective way to receive information.”

The banners might be small however the money spent on them is anything but, it’s common to see anywhere between £10,000 to £100,000 on buying up impressions for a single campaign across various operator portals and publisher sites. It’s big business and Google paying $750 million for Admob is a clear indication of how seriously mobile ad-serving is being taken. It’s not sexy but serving banner ads is always gonna be where the big moneyz will be made in mobile.

So isn’t it extraordinary that with all this money being spent, one of the most important parts of the eco-system is being massively overlooked? It’s a bit of a contradiction to the recent talk of how brands are leading the way with mobile.

The solution is pretty simple – if brands are investing in mobile advertising, they need to work with a good mobile agencies, using their experience and knowledge to help develop mobile sections in their guidelines. It shouldn’t just cover banners but also how copy is used too. There doesn’t seem to be much understanding that you can only fit a small number of words onto mobile graphics, they need to be punchy with a clear CTA. I don’t see why a copy writer is used for things like email newsletters but not for a mobile ad campaign costing upwards of £10,000.

Including mobile into brand guidelines will be a good investment, it can be built up over time to include all areas of mobile marketing (applications etc) continuously evolving…just like guidelines should.

The MMA

The Mobile Marketing Assocation is the non-profit industry trade group that represents agencies, advertisers, device manufacturers and wireless operators. Every year they produce mobile advertising guidelines in an attempt to educate the marketplace and establish industry-wide best practices. These range from recommendations for SMS marketing to file sizes for banners. The recommendations are then (supposedly) taken on by advertising networks who target mobile users by serving the ads across hundreds of different mobile sites. (Links to guidelines for 2007, 2008, 2009)

The problem is that the MMA haven’t changed the specification for static banner ads in 3 years. In 2008 they added just 1-2KB to animated banners only, in 2009 there was no change at all. It’s basically like the industry handicapping itself. One year in mobile is equivalent to a year on the Internet, things move at such a rapid rate and the MMA need to reflect this. The dimensions of the banner sizes haven’t changed, which I totally understand because even though you have iPhones and Androids, the majority of phones on the market are still made up by the four sizes below.

My question is why are the file size constraints still the same? The market has changed so much in 3 years, not just technology but also standard operator tariffs.

Here are some of the historical reasons for not changing the file size limits:

Slower 2.5G phones – A large part of the market still have 2.5G phones, so the you would think it makes sense to work to the lowest common denominator and keep the file sizes low. No user wants pages taking longer to load because of ads. However the MMA seem to forget that 2.5G phones get quicker at rendering wap pages every year because of faster processors and software. On top of this sites are often optimised to load content first, and then load the ads. This means that worrying about increased loading times for the end user over an extra 5-6KB isn’t warranted.

Data costs for the consumer – A few years back operators were charging data by the megabyte but now it’s capped at a daily rate for PAYG and contract tariffs in the UK and much of Europe, meaning that larger banners aren’t going to cost the consumer more.

Extra load on advertising servers – Come on now, really?

I’m a big on user experience and I wouldn’t be suggesting increasing the file size of advertising if it meant the consumer lost out. It will allow animated banners to have more frames and better animation, photography will look more recognisable and so will text. The end result will be something more visually engaging and informative or the consumer, and more valuable for the advertiser as it encourages more clicks.

Here are some examples:

Standard 7.48KB MMA Sized Animated Banner:

Here is a banner at 50% MORE than the MMA standard:

14.5KB Animated Banner

So what does the above banner look like under the MMA limit…..

7.27KB MMA sized Animated Banner:

Pretty grim hey?

We are now at a stage where the MMA should increase banner limits by at least 30-50% per size. Of course ad networks don’t have to pay any attention to the MMA guidelines and many don’t, but this needs to start from the top and filter down. There are some promising signs from networks in Europe where file size limits are a max of 15KB for every size, hopefully this will become more common.

Well that’s my view from the ground, I would love to hear some other opinions from within the industry.

Mobile Location Really Is About To Get Interesting

Murat — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:05:11 +0000

After joining in the debate at MobHappy on the post ‘Location on Mobile: Still Wandering Around A Little Aimlessly‘, I decided to post on here why I think location is about to become popular with consumers.

The conversation started because of a blog post on Mobile Entertainment describing The Top 10 Mobile Entertainment Misconceptions with number 9 being:

9. “Location-based technology is intrinsically exciting for consumers…”

No it’s not. The phrase “location-based technology” intrinsically puts most people who aren’t in the mobile industry to sleep. And they look equally unimpressed if you promise them their phone can guide them to the nearest cashpoint.

That was the big selling point of the early days of LBS, until the industry realised that even half-cut consumers can womble their way to the nearest bank machine under their own steam. Now the buzz is around social location, and mashing up your handset’s GPS with social media and Web 2.0 services.

The problem is that this is all still technology-led. The assumption that everyone wants to track their friends – and especially that they regularly go out in town with no specific plans in mind of who to meet or where to go – is unproven at best. As is the idea that people want to geotag all their photos and videos and share them with the world, all the time.

The next year or two will see some really smart, desirable mobile services launch that use location. But it’s the ones that are actually based on stuff people want to do that will succeed.

It’s more about great, desirable services that happen to have location elements in the mix.

I disagree with this statement on many counts.

Of course the term “location-based technology” isn’t interesting to the consumer, just like “Capacitive Surfaces” (iPhone touchscreen), “API’s” (applications, websites, plus loads of other cool stuff) aren’t, however these are the things behind the most popular consumer products and services today. You just need to wrap up the technology in a way the consumer can understand and get excited about.

“The problem is that this is all still technology-led” – I really don’t understand how it is technology-led, it’s totally service-led. Location needs to be a service to exist for consumers, for example a GPS chip is just a GPS chip without a TOM TOM attached it. Without all the other stuff knowing your own location is pretty useless, unless your a mountain trekker.

Lets face it, go up to a consumer and say “Location on your mobile will help you a ATM!!” and they probably won’t give a damn. I mean realistically how many times are you going to search for a ATM every week or even use your maps application in general for that matter. Maybe two or three times a week? Now lets try and put it into a better context for you as a consumer, compare your Maps usage to the amount of time you spend on lets say…Facebook. If it’s anything like me and my friends, the difference is huge.

From experience in conducting user research, you don’t just throw in buzz words and hope to get a reaction, you find out where most of their time is spent, tech usage habits and so on, then work in scenarios based on that. I can tell you now that in these tests everyone interviewed aged from 18 to 55 spends an awful lot of time on Facebook.

Once Facebook and Twitter start integrating location (soon), you’ll suddenly have over 300 million consumers location-enabled. No sign ups, no apps, no downloads and no barriers. They just continue updating like they always have. That’s how I see location being a hit, not by walking past a Starbucks and getting a voucher, that stuff won’t ever work until there are standards put in place and adopted by all handset manufacturers (things like vouchers wallets etc). Facebook will be one of the catalysts for adoption, social location is a powerful thing

In the past social location hasn’t really taken off because of the difficulty getting more than a handful of friends signed up to a service. Google Latitude is one example, great application but only 7 of my friends have it, incompatible handsets, lack of Gmail account, blah blah. Compare that to Facebook where all of my mates have an account.

It goes without saying that not everyone wants to track their friends, just like not everyone wants to share photos or tweet, but people do. Give everyday users the ability to do so without a fuss then you’ll see the popularity. There is clearly a demand otherwise money and time wouldn’t be spent developing this sort of thing. Anyway, privacy settings are there for a reason.

I blogged about location based status updates back in May, mainly because I can see the value in them as a Facebook user as well as a consumer. Below is a mock up of how I saw it integrated.

You can already see the popularity in seeing your friends location in services such as FourSquare. I think that we are close to seeing location on mobile being big. Watch this space.