Analysis of a location based application

For my analysis, I looked into one of the most popular LB-service in Estonia: ZEN Pling. It is a location based social network, meaning its main functions are similar to typical social network functionalities (interest-realted inner-communities, communication, sharing of the self-avatar etc), but a new sphere of information has been introduced to the users - the location.

This means, that the the users interaction will also have locational information (where the message was produced). Additionally one can monitor where specific persons are and also be informed in real time of the feeds interested of.

Although the service itself is quite familiar for now in the internet, Pling was one of the first if not The first LB-service in Estonia. The more important fact is that its user-base has been the largest LBS-using social network´s in Estonia.

The application (rather service) itself is quite simplistic - it uses mobile (GSM) positioning and is usable with many mobile-based web browsers and desktop browsers. The dataflow uses 3G communication channels (or 2G where the former is not applicalble).

Because of the simplisity I believe the service went on to be such a widely used service. One only needs to create the user account (registration processes are rather easy) to start using the service. This simplisity ofcourse makes however impossible to create embed or attached services based on Pling, which is why the service has been solely dying (iOS and Android apps based on GMaps are overtaking). Also the discussions of privacy have gotten more "louder" in Estonia, often making young people rethink the use of such services.

For the service to survive in the hardening competition the platform should be more open - for example the ability to create company page; or applications custom made by the users etc.

At the same time I understand that since the portal is owned by Elisa AS who is a mayor telecommunications operator, it would be too optimistic to expect it to develop this platform according to the open source community understandings.

Description of iRadio

The original idea for iRadio was outputted by our group already in the first lecture. We will now elaborate on the different chapters the defining frames on which the now-ready application was programmed.

Initial idea
Imagine a city/boy travelling by his car to a party located near Kapa-Kohila. The moment he reaches the outer limits of his favorite radio-station Uuno Raadio, he starts receiving annoying static from his radio. He now wishes to continue to listen to Uuno Raadio, but is unable to do it easily, as he doesn't know the frequency.

Our application is easily usable application, which will tell at that particular moment to the user, what is the new frequency for his favorite station.

Also - if the radio station doesn't reach to his new location, the application will offer a list all the stations available nearby. Also the user has an option to only see alike-stations (a Uuno Raadio fan would then see a Sky Plus frequency for example).

The development of the Idea
Our idea was then put to work, programmed mainly for the main-stream smartphone iPhone. We wanted to write the script very universally, meaning a large scale use of standard-base innovative scripting languages. To us it meant HTML5 and CSS3. As it later was revealed, these languages offer superb simplicity and usability regarding our goals.

Although the project was written keeping in mind the needs of the user of iPhone, our wish is to in the future to offer this platform as a browser-based solution (working as intended in Opera Mini for example).

The current state of the Idea
At this moment our project is quite ready, especially when thinking that it is still a prototype. The main functionality has been catered by our app and future developments of our project can be easily done. To point out specific subjects that need to be developed, we will list them now:

• the creation of a automated database of available station frequencies - currently we have to add and update the database of available radio stations manually, but it should be automated. In our view, when the program reaches a wider spectre of masses, a community-updated database could be used. This will also make the application more supra-national, meaning it can be easily used outside Estonia
• the programming of a alternative browsing possibility - currently a novice user may find our app somewhat difficult to use. One way to make it even more easier is to create an alternative map view, where the user only sees his or her location on the map. When she or he clicks on the icon (symbolizing himself), a diagram will be showed to him. Then he can easily select a colored sector from the diagram (circle-diagram), with each sector being a shortcut to a specific type of music-station (eg. Russian, dance, folk, Christian and alternative music-playing radio stations).

Essay on today's subject

Location-based communities in the web
summmer 2009

Location based communities in the web (LBWC) have started to appear over the last years, being repeatedly voted by the consumers to be innovative and exiting for the end user. LBWC utilises its user’s mobile device through mobile network, allowing him or her to share information, which is important to the person. Most commonly it includes user’s location or mapped locations of places that are somewhat important to the user. LBWC also allows other people, who are somehow related to the user, to find out where he or she is or what kind of places does the person like to visit.

New generation mobile phones with GPS support have brought LBWC to a new level, allowing more and more people to use its benefits. Users can publish information to the web straight from their location, with the GPS support allowing also the sharing of geolocation, aside content. This is a noticeable step forward in the development of the Internet, as was the use of multimedia in the web (at first, the Internet consisted only of text).

Acknowledging the importance of the LBWC, one of the oldest professional web communities, CNET, made a new category in the valued WebWare 100 awards. This year, aside the common categories for websites to compete in, there was also a category called Location based services. 30 websites or –utilities competed to be nominated. In the end, ten of them were nominated to be the most innovative products of web-applications in the field of location based services.

To reveal, what is the most common content of these applications, five categories were made:

Restaurants – websites like OpenTable or Yelp provide people the ability to search for restaurants nearby, rate them, make reservations and share opinions regarding the service they offer.

Maps – services like Google Maps or Live Search Maps offer users the ability to search location important to them, create collections of location information and share it with their friends and family.

Travel – websites like TripIt or FlightStats allows people to collect information regarding their travel plans, with options like route-marking, flight search (and information about durance, delays etc).

News – sites like Topix allow users to search news that are related somehow to the user’s current location.

Information – services like PolicyMap and Google Search let the user gain information important to him or her straight from the user’s location.

With the increasing user base, location based services have became also a threat to the persons privacy. people have just now started to realize, that the content they share over the Internet, will be their presumably longer than they expect, thus making the content sharer vulnerable for identity theft, blackmail or public embarrassment. With the conjoining of social networks and location based media the risk of that kind of harm is doubling, as the persons is also sharing it real-time location to the potential perpetrator.


References:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Location-based_service
- http://www.cnet.com/html/ww/100/2009/about/location.html?tag=mncol
- http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/location-based_mobile_apps_favorites.php
- http://www.google.ee/search?hl=et&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aet%3Aofficial&hs=3ac&q=location+based+communities+the+web&btnG=Otsi&lr=