How To Create The Killer Location Aware Social Networking Application

HOW TO CREATE THE KILLER LOCATION AWARE SOCIAL NETWORKING APPLICATIONMr. Yogev Triki

VP Business Development, AtlasCT Ltd.

What will we talk about?

Topics

1. Introduction

2. Features set

3. Common issuesa) Reaching critical mass

b) Building trust

c) Bringing it to life

d) Dealing with fragmentation

e) Obtaining location

4. Conclusions

5. Q&A

Our background

More…

Our background

Location based users-generated content Location based social network

Our background

Family safety 3D Off-board navigation

1. Introduction

What is a social networking service?

A software/service for building online social networks for communities of people who share interests and/or activities

The most famous ones:

Why bother?

“40 percent of mobile web traffic heads to social networks”Source: Opera mobile browser.

Mobile social networking revenues could reach $52 billion by 2012.” Source: Informa UK Ltd. ‘Mobile Social Networking: Communities and Content on the Move’ Report.

“GPS-enabled handsets that will account for an estimated 78% market share by 2012 end.” Source: Research and Markets, ‘World GPS Market Forecast to 2012’.

Location is a key boost to social networks More and more handsets & operators support location

More efficient advertising opportunities

Navigation is the mostly step 2 of the mobile user

Viral marketing

2. Features set

What are the features?

Around me

Where am I?

Where are my friends?

What is nearby?

Nearby friends Basic

Nearby locations Useful

Nearby content Fun

Photos

Videos

Comments

Communication

Contacting A known friend

Unknown person

A business (Search result)

Means Phone call

Video call (3G)

SMS

Instant messaging (IM)

Voice over IP (VoIP)

Issues Disclosing details

Spoofing details

Costs

Tracking of communication

Content sharing

Geo-tagging

Multimedia

Photos

Videos

Text

Locations

POI’s

Tourism

Other (Wi-Fi Hot-spots, celebrities etc.)

Content sharing

Incentives for generating content by users Personal use of the content

Expectation for getting something in return

Getting to know better the system, curiosity

Feeling of making change, Ego,

The 90:9:1 thumb rule 90% Passive

9% Casual contributors

1% Massive contributors - They create most of the content in the website

a) Reaching critical mass

3. Common issues

Critical mass

What is a critical mass?

A minimum number of users that by actively exchanging information and sharing knowledge they keep an online community up and running over time.

How to reach critical mass in short time?

Fast growth

Use the existing contact list

Add friends from other networks Facebook, LinkedIn, Orkut,

etc.

Invite friends from mail accounts Gmail, Yahoo, POP3 etc.

Suggest friends Two 2nd degree links

Make use of groups Fastest!

b) Building trust

3. Common issues

Building trust

Brand Don’t spam – let the

user decide what and when

Be careful with default values (Examples: default location availability, photos publicity etc.)

Protect against identity theft

Digital signature and code signing

Building trust

Legal protection Minimum age for

signing-up

Separate to age groups Parents/moderator

permission for adding a friend/publish a photo

Privacy management Location availability –

Opt ins

Location obfuscation Time/place

C) Bringing it to life

3. Common issues

Bringing it to life

How to make the application ‘feel alive’? Let it work from the first

moment Friends availability

Content availability

“We were waiting just for you”

News feeds New content

More friends

“While you were gone…”

d) Dealing with fragmentation

3. Common issues

Handset families

Choose one handset family to begin with:

Display dimensions

API’s availability

Market share

Average user profile

Generalization

Make your code “porting ready”

Images dimensions

API’s abstraction

Location

Communications

UI’s

Keypad

Full keyboard

Touch screen

Consider using 3rd party services for porting

e) Obtaining location

3. Common issues

Obtaining location

Locationing methods

External (Bluetooth) GPS receiver

Internal GPS receiver

Network based

Cell ID

IP address

Manual

Other (Wi-Fi, others)

Obtaining location

Major differences Accuracy

Good enough for navigation? Good enough for local

search? Good enough for local

advertising?

Availability Through 3rd party provider Built-in, API Self implemented

Power consumption

What’s best for navigation isn't essentially the best for social networking

4. Conclusions

Product

Remember who your users are Usage patterns Implications on porting scope

Age Implications on complexity and

legal issues

Buying ability Implications on business model

Remember what your application is for Mostly for fun Implications on GUI

Saving time <> Killing time Implications on features set

Development

Don’t “invent the wheel” Use existing API’s and

tools available Aggregate users from

existing networks

Don’t shoot too far Give the basic features

first and introduce more advanced features later

Begin with a small group of supported devices

Focus on what you’re good at

5. Q&A

Yogev TrikiVP Business Development

Atlas Cartographic Technologies Ltd. (AtlasCT)

yogevt@atlasct.com

www.atlasct.com

Thank you!