Why daily deals need to evolve beyond location

Verizon states their Location Based Service (LBS) API offers a resolution of 150m. That figure is conservative in my estimate as I have seen my location on some apps better than 10m. LBS are used for all manner of applications. Outfits like Living Social offer instant deals depending on where you are. These deals seldom inspire me to try the deli on the corner with the dusty ceiling fan.  Focusing deals on where you are is cool. Once the cool factor has worn off, the $10 for $20 deal at the dusty deli remains. Not cool.  Other than maps and directions, the killer application for LBS still eludes us. The added fidelity of knowing where and who you are at the same time is the ultimate prize.

Certainly, if I check in at Starbucks I have told everyone who and where I am. I would have gone there anyway, but the check-in may get me a Foursquare badge. I have taken action to give specific information.  My Google search history goes back to 2006! It reads like a diary of what I was doing and what I was interested in.  In the spring of 2006 I was looking at fly-fishing spots.  I don’t see how this kind of information can be used for evil, especially if I have the choice to turn it off.

The technology already exits to track your movements and purchases on most phones. If not for privacy issues, my phone would know enough about me to never suggest that dusty deli. We already give up the expectation of privacy at work and when we walk down the street.  All of our financial and medical records are already out there in the ether. Once legislators and privacy wonks understand that knowing where you like to eat is not the slippery slope people think it is, applications with specific information about you will help you make choices that are consistent with who you are as person not where you are as a person.

My grand vision is the creation of applications that know who we are, and what we like passively without specific interaction or intrusion.  The requirement to self identify (check-in) is a thing of the past. Our application knows us by our interactions.

Everyone will have a much richer experience when applications are freed to know us as individuals and not coordinates on a map

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