At the Mobile location based services

I just came back from Telematics mobile location based services in Novi, MI. It's been a busy day of discussions and a great opportunity to learn and netwrok. I heard interesting topics and met key players in the industry. It was a must to attend event.

The agenda included a keynote by Symbian VP for US Operations Jerry Panagrossi, a presentation about accuracy vs. simplicity: Critical factors for delivering Quality of Service by Trueposition VP, Business development, Joseph Khori, a presentation about overcome limitations posed by legal issues and regulations by mark Jacobstien, EVP Business Development, Loopt. Followed by panels of discussions about Providing user centric mobile navigation, Monetizing Local Content for the mobile marketplace, Mobile search + location = Fulfilled user expectations?, Profit from proximity based marketing and advertising, Social networking to build mobile communities, and closed by a discussion about Location Enabling the Consumer. The panel were from: Motorola, Cingular, Telematics, Peterson mobility, Soliel group, Trffic.com. Loopt, Skyhook wireless, Jumptap, Infospace, technocom Corporation, Profillium, LBS Globe, Enpocket, Medio, knowledge where, Autodesk, ulocate, Useful networks, IDC, Handmark, Customwetaher, Gearworks, and more.

I had the opportunity talking to experts in the industry about SpotForecast and get some feedback and potential partnerships. They were interested in working together with SpotForecast and how they recognize the problem of car parking. We discussed the challenges behind delivering location and time sensitive information and how this has been for long time the challenging factor for LBS in the navigation devices. Some argued that a solution is being taking too long to be created, others expressed that the availability of such an accuracy is been developing and we might see something soon which will open doors of solutions to businesses and customers.

Location based services, or Location enhanced services are one of the most intersting topics ranking high in businesses and customers interests with the biggest markets in US, EU, Japan and Korea.

There is a future for the communication between cars and smart phones and between consumers and locations. Moreover, Nokia will introduce a Point and find device now being under lab test were you can take a picture from your navigation nokia phone and instantly will receive information about the picture.

Finally, Robb Duffied/ Autodesk LBS introduced how Autodesk is developing LBS using Urban data instead of geodata or zip codes. This got my attention and will need another post to discuss so I will talk about it later.

I have to get ready now to attand the Where2.0 conference in San Jose, Ca. It will be another great extravaganza event.