Mobile Killer app is finally here: Part 2

As promised, this is part II of my article on maps and location based services. Using maps and location as the platform, there are so many different applications that can be built. Maps and PND (personal navigation device) service are already available in most of the handset and some of the operators have deployed the same. We could add so many different niche features using the existing platform- For e.g. Location based social networking could become one of the niche social networking platform for mobile. For the past couple of year’s web based social networking companies like facebook and myspace are ruling the web with wide user acceptance. More than that, location is more real time than web, which is more asynchronous and offline. According to some reports, 51% of the operators revenue from data service came from location based services. This percentage speaks for itself.

We could build so many different interesting applications on top of maps and location. Here are some of the categories where interesting applications can be developed and some of them are already being provided either by operators or navigational developers.

Social networking and entertainment
-------- Communities
-------- Instant Messaging
-------- Match Mating( Dating)
-------- Games
-------- Social Mapping
Information
-------- Local search
-------- City guide
-------- Weather
-------- Traffic
-------- Shopping guide
-------- Mobile yellow pages
Navigation
-------- Map display
-------- Turn-by-Turn navigator
-------- Self Guided Tours
-------- Vehicle Assistance (OnStar)
-------- Car parking guidance
Tracking
-------- People tracking
-------- Asset tracking
-------- Automotive Vehicle Location (Fleet tracking)
-------- Fleet-Management
-------- Workforce management
-------- Child Finder
-------- Finding elderly or individuals with Alzheimer
-------- Stolen vehicle tracking
Location Based billing
-------- Voice calls
-------- Data transfer
Location based Advertisements
-------- Location based shopping discount fliers
-------- Location based restaurant discount coupon with direction
Geo Tagging
-------- Photo tagging
-------- Video tagging
Location based alerts
-------- Reminders
-------- Traffic alerts
-------- Weather alerts
Emergency Applications
-------- E-112 emergency services
-------- Body guard services

So folks interesting times ahead for location based services. Let’s hope operators open up their platform for other third-party vendors with innovative ideas. I guess Verizon opening up their platform should be good news for LBS based services.
Check out my article on location based services startups.