Location enabled services – check-in, voucher redemption, local search and social networking apps – are rapidly coming of age. And while location based advertising is still in its infancy, it is predicted that revenue will rocket to $1.8 billion in 2015.
This is not all the location industry is up against at present. Whilst traditional navigation players are eager to establish partnerships with LBS providers, the navigation technology is rapidly evolving beyond a stand-alone product. The car meanwhile is morphing into a mobile platform, and the LBS industry is beginning to target the highly lucrative automotive market.
With the convergence of both markets, opportunities are arising within local search, reach and relevancy, alongside advertising and social location. These topics are all underplayed by the demand of the consumer, and what the end-user wants. Whether the automotive and LBS service providers are managing to live up to the high expectations of the consumer is another issue which clearly needs addressing.
LocNav USA, 2011 conference and exhibition, being held on October 18-19, in San Jose has just been launched to bring these converging communities together under one roof in the heart of Silicon Valley.
With over 300 senior level executives attending, this event is offering the perfect platform for cross-pollination networking across the navigation and location industry. Compromised of the annual Location Business Summit and Beyond Navigation conference, now in its seventh year, an array of interactive workshops and a Get Funded Show, LocNav USA will be the one stop for the location executives this year.
It is apparent that this inaugural event will address all of the key issues from ubiquitous location and the shifts in the navigation ecosystem between the Tier 1’s, OEMs and PNDs, to social location and location based advertising.
TheWhereBusiness’ VP of North America, Naomi Hands explained the reasons behind why the decision was made to co-locate these two conferences: ‘Over the last year we have seen a huge shift in the industry where navigation and location are becoming integrated in levels we have not seen before. By speaking to key industry figures, it became obvious that there was the need to bring not only the top guys from both ecosystems together, but also the start-ups, to bring their ideas into the mix.’
She also commented: ‘With such a huge industry buy in from associations, this year I’m also really excited about both our Get Funded event and over eight interactive workshops which we are able to offer delegates – it’s definitely shaping up to be the super-location event.’
LocNav USA has attracted a high calibre of speakers, including MTV/Viacom, Garmin, BMW, Nokia, Sprint, CSR, JiWire, Expedia, Mapquest, Google, Intel, Ericsson, Tasti D-Lite, Geotoko, Yahoo! and Palm.
Registration for the event is now open on the LocNav website, and this year, one ticket gets access all areas.
TheWhereBusiness publishes news and events for those involved in the navigation and location ecosystem. Through high-end B2B conferences, we connect people across the industry, provide market leading intelligence and enable companies to capitalise on emerging business opportunities in location-based services, navigation, geo-web, tracking and mobile advertising; basically, anything that involves location, context or maps! Through continuous independent research with hundreds of companies and dedicated journalists, our news portal keeps you one step ahead of an industry in flux, and our events provide key networking forums for the industry.
