DAEM Interactive, a Barcelona based startup, uses ‘mixed and augmented reality‘ that allows users to capture images of products, advertisements or logos on their mobile handsets and send them through MMS to a DAEM server and immediately receive relevant information on their phones, creating interactivity between users and advertisers. It supports pictures taken of newspapers, magazines, billboards, street displays, posters, product packaging labels and merchandizing. Users can get information on demand, participate in interactive sessions, surveys or get promotions.

Essentially the solution connects users and brands. It supports all phones with cameras and uses image-recognition instead of the 2-D Bar Code approach to make that physical world connection. DAEM claims that the camera resolution, distance, lighting conditions, angles or partial occlusion of the target does not matter. Really? It has also announced working on video versions for the 3G and later technologies. Now, this area is really hot with new announcements coming all the time. For instance, there’s Gentag, trying to use the mobile phone as an RFID reader.

There is a tremendous potential in Proximity Marketing and so the big bad wolves should be just round the corner. Of course, there are still questions such as, the time taken for such a transaction with larger sized images and a slow medium. Maybe have automated compression to send a lower resolution image by MMS? Do not expect the user to press buttons or select some options to convert the image to lower resolution just for MMS. The carriers will of course, welcome the traffic. Since DAEM is already gaining traction in Spain, it seems to hold a lot of promise. Meanwhile, our kudos to DAEM for charting a new course.

Further Reading:

Some inputs on the m-trends blog
Gordon Synder’s blog post on Proximity Marketing
Red Knight’s blog post on Proximity Marketing Others in the same space: RealEyes3D, UpCode Ltd, Futurlink
And others: Wiremedia, WayMedia

In a previous post, I made a reference to LBS Location Based Services on handsets having GPS capabilities. This post explores the market for such devices a little more. That these capabilities are inevitable goes without saying, but what is driving this trend now?

CDMA carriers have had GPS in their handsets all along. Qualcomm’s gpsOne has provided the AGPS (Assisted GPS) hardware as a sort of freebie. Carriers are beginning to enable this only now. One report concludes that by the end of 2008, 25% of the WCDMA handsets will have GPS. A significant number of GSM phones will start to have this by next year end. The Nokia N95 phone uses GPS technology from TI. Advances in handset capabilities, better offerings from carriers and government regulations for emergency services (like E911) are the main driving factors.

GPS chip-makers can look forward to a good period of growth (although the CDMA market will still be controlled by Qualcomm). SiRF Technology Holdings (the leader), Atmel, Global Locate, GloNav, Nemerix, TI and u-Nav will be in ascendant mode.

Where will this leave the traditional navigation unit makers? It is already crowded - Garmin, Tom Tom, Dash Navigation, Magellan, Lowrance, HP, Alpine, Ares Digital and … It is not a surprise that Philips decided to not to enter this bloodbath. In spite of a mad race to differentiate themselves with more and more meat (wireless capabilities, MP3 players, in-built satellite radio, contextual information on Points of Interest, etc), it is going to be rosy for only a short while before the consolidation starts.

But, Location Based Services themselves throw up lots of exciting possibilities for new companies and startups. ABI Research estimates that there will be upwards of 20 million subscribers for this by 2011. Watch this blog for more on location based services in coming weeks.

Further Reading:

LBS Community portal has lots of useful information and updates
The LBS Resource Center from Palowireless
Ajit Jaokar’s take on LBS
Another resource site: Directions Magazine
A slightly dated but still relevant article on LBS

Considering that the Internet and the Cell phone are the fastest adopted technologies, it seems only logical that services and applications mushroom in these areas. In line with the expected predictions, remember what Dave Haskin said some time back: “Smart presence” is bound to come to a mobile screen near you.

Loopt is a Palo Alto based startup, providing “social mapping” service, using GPS to show you where your friends are by automatically updating maps on your Java mobile handset. Founded by Sam Altman and Nick Sivo, both Stanford students, it was known earlier by other names such as Radiate and Flipt. Launched on Boost Mobile, Sprint Nextel’s GPS-enabled iDEN teen-focused-network, this service will be available on other US carriers soon. A new version of the software was released last month, which includes a ‘journaling’ feature allows Loopt customers to photograph, write about, and geo-tag their favorite spots to share with their friends.

Although it sounds rather cool, Loopt is not the pioneer in this area. Dodgeball (now owned by Google) is the real pioneer who has been trying this out since 2000. And boy, there is competition: Jaiku, which is based in Finland and, there is Helio, powered by SK Telecom and Earthlink. But Loopt is gaining attention. Their mashup using Google maps and MySpace-like profiles seem to be paying off. At the recent ‘Under the Radar‘ event, it won the Social Messaging category, selected by both - judges and audiences.

Loopt is powered by Series A, $5 million funding (Sequoia Capital, New Enterprise Associates and others). Since it ties up with the carriers, it is bound to make money. The service is free through the end of the year. After that, it will cost $3 a month. It already claims more than 40000 users as of November 2006. It hopes to turn a profit next year.

Such services are inevitable. One can imagine a plethora of situations when such a feature could be useful or even vital. In case of a disaster, it could be life-saving. It could become a ‘cannot-be-turned-off’ feature that reassures you where your kids are all the time. A detailed version could show where a particular doctor is in a big, sprawling hospital. And of course, even though it is ‘opt-in’ with lots of safety buttons, it will throw up new privacy questions.

Further Reading:

On TechCrunch post
PCMagazine’s review of the Loopt service
Mention on Mashable
CNNMoney’s coverage of Loopt announcement available through Sprint
Loopt’s own blog

Wallop empowers you create your distinct online personality by empowering you to mesh your online and offline personas. What struck me the most about Wallop was the interface (co-designed by the Frog Design team). There really is no metaphor that nicely describes the site. Movement throughout the application is very organic. The most “forced feature” if there is any, is the method of creating conversations around things.One of the most interesting features is the Radar. This is the visual map of your network. They are abandoning the friend of a friend model. The system uses an affinity model that brings people closer to you based on your level of interaction with the individual - either direct or indirect (through your network).

Some controversy seems to have dusted up over the Mods. These are small flash movies that can be created by the 2M+ flash developers in the world. Wallop is literally a marketplace for flash applets. They take a 30% commission for the sale and all pricing is dictated by the creator. I give it a thumbs up.

Further Reading:

Pronet Advertising has very good write up on Wallop
Read about Wallop on Mashable