4 Reasons Location-Based Services Will Become a Thing Again in 2015

Heres an experiment: The next time you head out to lunch, compare the restaurants icon on your mapping application to the location on the door. The odds are that the icon will be at least 20 meters away from the door itself. The algorithms which marketers use to analyze location cannot tell whether we intended to go to a McDonalds on the corner or the gym next door.

For a consumer, that’s not going to stop them from finding lunch. But that margin of error presents a major hurdle for marketers as they look to use location data to not only target ads, but measure their effectiveness as well. The algorithms which marketers use to analyze location cannot tell whether we intended to go to a McDonald’s on the corner or the gym next door.

The good news is that the technology, which smartphones use to determine where we are in the real world, is improving. Here are four trends that will help push location-based services forward in 2015.

Smartphones will start to understand places not just locations
Improved consumer data will put pressure on business POI providers
Ambient awareness breaks into the mainstream
Hyperlocal content delivery takes hold