Backblog | Mobility

While preparing for my recent survey exploring sense of place and location-based services, I wanted to find out the mobile device types and usage patterns of participants.  I have previously offerred my take on the definition of mobile device and blogged on What exactly is a mobile device.

As much research continues into how we use location based services on mobile devices to access geotargetted information, I've been considering other ways we can access information about place.

Would it surprise you to learn that only 30 per cent of Canadians own a smartphone? It surprised the heck out of me.

What is geosocial and how does it provide ways for people to link products and services?

Why do people use mobile devices? Which ones do they use and is their use growing? Yes it is - tablet use, for one, is growing rapidly - and this offers opportunities explains Nick Jones.

Over the past few months, I’ve been exploring how location-based services and geotargetted information affect our relationship to the places we encounter. More people are using these mobile applications, including Foursquare, Gowalla, Google Places, SCVNGR, Layar, and a seeming endless array of apps to help us locate and learn more about everything from where we parked our car to the nearest restaurant.

In a pair of editorials recently (http://goo.gl/Tv2gE and http://goo.gl/0qSGQ) I discussed the problems at RIM and criticized the company both for its actual performance and for the way it communicated (entirely failed to communicate) with customers during the recent data outage.

I recently attended a conference on locative media and the definition of locative media offered, and one that is often assumed, is that locative media are mediums that address a physical space through digital technology.

Bill Buxton opened a half-day conference on locative media this past Friday at Toronto International Film Festival's (TIFF) new building, by noting that it is not just realtors anymore asserting the importance of location, location, location.

Place is no longer a brackdrop for our information seeking, creation, and sharing. As I have blogged about there are multiple location-based mobile apps. Such apps enable information to be customized based on a user’s geographic position. Various commercial applications and research projects have shown users value geographic relevance in their information seeking scenarios.

How's that for a big topic? I think about it a lot, but its demise looks increasingly inevitable, especially the way the FCC is talking these days. Much like the railroads, when the system becomes too expensive to operate, the operators start making noise and giving reasons why it needs to be scaled back or done away with altogether.

For the past few months, I have wanted to purchase a portable computing device but have been paralyzed by an inability to determine what best to buy. I don't have the budget to buy everything, so I've been trying to decide whether to buy a tablet, e-reader, or netbook. Recently our laptop computer has been gravely ill and so this adds to my purchase dilemma.

By now, you’ve heard about Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility. As the largest deal in Google’s history (a whopping $12.5 billion!), there has been, unsurprisingly, a flurry of debate and discussion. There may be some significant change on the horizon, but what does it mean for the industry?

London, UK-based app developers Blippar will soon be launching a brilliant platform for garnering pull-based mobile response to ads by with some ultra-cool augmented reality tools.

Yesterday, Google announced the launch of Google Wallet, a system that uses near-field communication devices inside of mobile phones to send payments.

Silicon Valley like its metallic namesake is shiny and alluring to those in the tech and digital media sector. In comparisson, Ontario often seems dull and staid. Although Canada has had its share of tech and Net success stories over the years, the news and blogs are saturated with coverage of the happenings in the Valley. Often Canadian tech companies are only covered in mainstream media when they sell out or move down south.

Moving to the downtown core of a large city from my semi-suburban hometown, I felt impressed by - yet detached from - my urban surroundings. I enjoyed the heterogeneity of the architecture and historical roots of my new city and also appreciated the diversity of civic and citizen cultural locations – so unlike my hometown. Although I had visited the city before moving there and was familiar with the prominent buildings and main streets, I lacked a sense of the place. As a newcomer, I did not have the personal contacts to receive the insider knowledge from my neighbours.

By now, most of the wired population have heard of Foursquare (I've certainly blogged about Foursquare enough). Foursquare may be the most popular location-based mobile application, but it certainly not the first or only.

At the recent South by Southwest (SXSW) conference which wrapped up last Saturday many new and emerging technologies were discussed, not the least of which was QR codes. We’ve talked about what these codes are in the past and what they can do for your mobile marketing, but SXSW really highlighted the popularity of this technology, especially through the marketing at the event itself.

The term "mobile" is used all the time in media, business, academia, and by users without a common and precise definition of the term. A definitive sense of the terms is complicated by the rapid expansion and evolution of portable devices connected to the Internet. Smura, Kivi, and Toyli (2009) believe a mobile device must meet three criteria:

Over the last year, I have been researching and contemplating usage of the location-based mobile application Foursquare. A one-time avid user, my own usage has lessened significantly over the last few months. This is due to the loss of novelty for me, a lack of critical mass of my friends using it, almost non-existent financial incentives, and Foursquare's interface limitations.

The topic of location-aware mobile applications are certainly a growing area. Whether an application used more for fun and reviews such as Foursquare or to find nearby businesses such as the Yellow Pages app, I believe this type of technology will become increasingly ubiquitous and embedded in an increasing number of applications and online services.