In preparation for the MetaPlaces conferences I just spent some time talking to Shaili Jain, co-founder of Abaq.us the people behind MyGeoDiary trying to analyse the business model opportunities for a classic LBS startup…
Their consumer service, myGeoDiary, is intended to demonstrate the capability of the platform. The aim is to reach enterprise customers with the white label solution. For instance, myGeoDiary could be co-branded by the customer or used to build turnkey apps for the enterprise.
Selling the platform alone would be very challenging. An API set doesn’t go a long way and it’s much easier to build a consumer app on top to show what it does from the start.
That’s exactly what a number of players have done, including Sense Networks and Pelago. Their target is GPS device makers as well as hardware manufacturers of vertical fitness devices that provide social context and data analytics
The first business model (BM) option is to get the myGeoDiary app co-branded by social website companies with a marketing need to convince their users about the ways in which content, social information, data, analytics and location fit together.
Garmin's MapMyRide is a case in point. Consumers pay for the device. Garmin’s MotionBased online service used to charge up to $11 a month for premium subs (which Shaili thinks is far too much). With myGeoDiary, there will be the option to set up event-specific services on a pay-per-use basis.
The sustainability of the model really depends on what you offer and how much it costs. I guess it's about making the benefit very clear. The myGeoDiary app records and stores your GPS tracks; displays this data on a map, either on the web or a phone; and extracts personal analytics from this data to create social activities around the data, either at the co-branded myGeoDiary site (www.myGeoDiary.com) or on any other preferred social site, such as Facebook via Facebook connect.
The second model is exemplified by the partnership with an operator with myGeoDiary being able to connect to its location based social network. This enables customer access to location-centric events, Yelp! previews, local gas prices, listings and so on.
myGeoDiary becomes a channel to access personal location history, photos, tracking, analytics on Android and the like (and ultimately on any phone on the network). Users can also enable this personal location data across any web application.
An operator was looking for a platform to enable recording of geocontent that would integrate well with their own backend and tie in with their suite of on-deck/off-deck web apps. Abaq.us is currently in trial launch but the next step is to create a white label product for operators worldwide.
In this case, the operator could be paying for the app and act as service provider, but most likely it will run as an Abaq.us service deployed by the operator with a revenue share model. The customers would be charged minimally to geotag photos, post their location tracks, share location data on personal hubs and feed it into their chosen social network. Besides smart phones, the location could be provided by the operator's network in the case of feature phones (which seem to be the target).
The 3rd optional business model is exemplified by Abaq.us partnership with an automotive site where people can find cars and dealers. The site provides research content on cars and is monetised via ads and lead generation. It is also trying to add a social element to keep users coming back to the site after buying a car. Abaq.us is trialing the myGeoDiary app on their site for drivers to build a geo journal and link it to information about after-sales services. This model is ad-share based.
Shaili will join the panel discussion on Location based social networks with Loopt and Socialight
