Information Services in LBS: the Core of LBS lies in services

LBS is a location-based service. Many people or companies who want to join the LBS tide are studying how to make good use of the newly added technology. However, in terms of syntax, the key core of location-based services is actually services, and location is only a limitation.

Currently, the popular POI model LBS is the information point service.Its core is actually a process of integrating offline resources with geographic information. Mark the location points with information on the map. When the user is near, view nearby information based on the distance.

For both parties that publish and accept information, what they need is not the information, but the service behind the information. For people or organizations that publish information, they actually publish advertisements. People who receive this information need a consulting service. This service is provided by POI by extracting information from advertisements and providing consulting services for users. Through the consulting service, users are attracted to the merchants around them for consumption, which is also a service provided by POI. The domestic POI applications are not perfect in terms of services, but have completed information transmission and push. The ability of consultants and consumers is not very strong. However, these service providers can't wait to start absorbing cash by restaurant positioning, seller sorting, and helping sellers delete harmful information.

The Check In mode is very popular, and it is difficult to operate independently.Because the result of Check in is actually to tell others that I am "here for a tour ". The people who do this usually want to tell two types of people: first, their friends, and second, strangers who arrive here. Of course, it would be better if a friend of mine could arrive here.

However, there are not many people who like to leave traces everywhere. Humans do not need to mark their territory as some animals do by urinating anywhere. Especially In any checked In LBS application In a completely blank territory, it is blank at the beginning). It is really meaningless to make such a mark. Therefore, most Check in applications are integrated with the POI system. That is to say, you can get some benefits by checking in at the Information Point.

Currently, most of these systems have very loose restrictions on sign-in to quickly accumulate a large number of users and content. Some even allow me to sit in front of a computer in the office and sign in anywhere in the world. Even if there are some restrictions, it is only possible to refuse to sign in from a location several kilometers away from the user's current location. After all, as mentioned above, the current LBS still has many technical defects. The sign-In restriction is too loose, so that the sign-in behavior cannot bring any specific revenue to the sellers who provide services in POI. Then these merchants will naturally not be willing to allocate their profits to the LBS service providers of Alibaba Cloud.

Dating services may be difficult to carry out in China,Because the drive without economic benefits is driven by economic benefits, I am afraid it will be more troublesome), so this kind of thing is difficult to develop and it is more difficult to accumulate users than the Check In system.

The core of LBS is services, but the services of LBS applications that can be seen are not so satisfactory. Next let's analyze what services the user needs. How Should LBS service providers meet these needs and provide services to users?

Service entity

There are three types of entities that require service in LBS. They are merchants, people, and people. Next, let's analyze these entities and what services they need.

Merchants

The service that merchants need most is to attract people around them to consume them. These merchants all have a fixed position. They want to know who has passed by, and whether these people can consume on their own, and want to have as many people as possible, go to his store to consume as many services as possible.

Most of my blogs can be viewed in the computer market. The computer market is full of people who pull business. They will hold every customer around them and ask them what kind of service they need. If the customer needs the services they can provide, they will enthusiastically pull customers to their counters. In fact, merchants want to achieve this through the LBS service. In some places, even in mobile base stations, advertisement text messages are sent to every mobile phone user entering the coverage of the mobile base station.

At a deeper level, the shops that provide services always have peak hours and low hours. These shops usually need to be lined up during peak hours, so they certainly hope that consumers will be able to consume at peak hours, or try to reduce the time required to consume the same services during peak hours. This is no longer the scope of LBS, and can be elaborated in other articles in the future.

Finally, the merchant wants to understand the customer. Who are always wandering around, who like what kind of service they like, and what they feel after they have consumed some services. How can these people spend more on their own? What is the current LBS service provider doing for this demand.

LBS is actually a service in a small region, but nowadays, LBS service providers are working hard to serve the world like Internet companies. Therefore, LBS is targeted at services in every region, i'm sure I can't be so careful. In order to get more online users, more clicks, and more POI information, they do not want to divide users and regions too precisely. There are not many users, and there will be fewer people in each grid. This is a contradiction, because only by narrowing down the grid can we provide more targeted services.

The current POI system is filled with various advertisement information, and its biggest function is to enable users to see the signs behind the corner. The signboard before the corner can be seen with the naked eye. The function of the POI system is to pay some money for the shops after the corner, and then the system tells the user that there is better behind the corner. This is actually a double-edged sword for stores. The system can attract users on the other side of the corner, or attract users already standing at the door of the store. Only one thing is certain, no matter which side of the corner of the shop will be paid to the POI system. This is actually very unfair.

Individuals

Some people like to go around and write "here for a tour" in various forms. For example, I like to label a suitcase. If I need to check my luggage, the airport will place a label on my suitcase. Then, take the plane and paste another one. It gradually accumulates, just like a lot of medals, marking every city I have traveled. Unfortunately, when people at the airport put tags on them again, they were afraid that the Porter would not be able to read the wrong tag, so they could mount the wrong flight and tear up all the old labels. It is a pity. This is actually the most primitive Check in system.

People are a social creature, so they hope to be recognized by others and chat with others in their spare time. As I have said above, I like the travelers who enter and exit the airport like me and show off the labels marked by cities on my luggage. Many people like to show off something, but the methods and methods are different. Many people want to know people or things. Especially when they are bored, they want to know if the people around them are as boring as they are, and whether they can chat with others. This is what the geographic location-based dating system should satisfy.

When a person walks to a strange place, he needs to find something delicious and delicious. What he needs is not a simple understanding of the store information around him. The POI system provides mostly naked advertisements. Users who come to unfamiliar locations need accompanying tour guides or consulting services.

Groups

People with a certain degree of similarity are the people to be described here. These people may not always get together, but they want to get information from each other. Many of them are lonely even when they are together. They want to talk to some people, but have some concerns. There are two concerns: first, people with the same language cannot be found; second, fear of rejection. What those SNS based on geographical locations need to do is to pair and filter them. This solves the two concerns above.

Some information is what we want to know. For example, if my friend has come to my city. I don't need to know which hotel this friend lives in, or whether the friend is in the restaurant, room, or toilet. I only need to know that my friend has arrived in my city, so I have the opportunity to sit and chat with him. For my friends, they can also see who is there before going to a city, and then prepare some gifts in advance. When I have an appointment with a friend and want to join him, the LBS system should be able to provide more detailed geographical location information.

Information Flow

The process of providing services by LBS is actually the process of transferring information and sending suitable information to the appropriate people. Or people can find the information they need.

The difference between the two processes is that one is proactive push and the other is self-fetch. At this stage, these two methods are very common. Different application modes should be selected based on your own needs. There are no advantages or disadvantages, and the key is whether it is suitable.

Information Filtering

The first step of information flow is information filtering. Not all information can be sent, nor any information can be received.

First, let's talk about sending information. Merchants certainly want to push as much information as possible to users, but are worried that users will hate it. Therefore, you need to select more refined and attractive information. This poses a filtering problem.

In the LBS system, if people publish their precise coordinates to the Internet all the time for supervision by the whole society, it will be chilling to think about it. However, we hope to announce our arrival to others, acquaintances, or strangers. As I have done before, the airport check-in label is attached to the suitcase. Most people spend most of their time and do not mind where they are or where they have arrived. You may even want to say hello when you pass by your friends. After all, it is not a frequent occurrence of stories like the ancient saying that the past was just as prosperous and failed. Therefore, the accuracy of personal geographic location information is absolutely different for different people, locations, times, and scenarios. Most of the time, for most locations, and most of the respondents, it is enough to provide a coordinate precise to the city. However, sometimes, especially for some friends, they can provide more precise coordinates.

There is a story that cannot be regarded as a story to illustrate this problem. When two Chinese people meet in foreign countries, they are villagers because they come from the same country. However, the same problem occurs in China. In a strange city, only two people from the same province can be regarded as fellow villagers. And so on, in a province, only the people from the same region are fellow villagers. in a region, the fellow villagers must come from the same county. when they enter the county seat, the villagers refer to the same village. When the villagers arrive, the villagers come out of the same village.

This is also the case when many people climb to their hometown. The first question is: which province are you from? If you are from the same province, ask the other city, county, township, and village. Of course, if there is a difference at which level, it will stop and start to calculate the distance and direction between administrative divisions at this level.

For example, if two people are in the same hometown, make sure that their accents are similar before they can start to climb the hometown. I usually want to talk to you first: I want to talk to you like Shandong or other provinces. In this process, I will show my pure Native voice, and then ask, I am from Linyi City). What about you? The other party may also answer Linyi's question. Then, I am from Cangshan County. At this time, the other party's answer may be: I am from Yinan County. It's quite far away from you.

From this process, we can see that such communication is gradually in-depth and accurate in the continuous attempt. After determining the degree to which the information can be accurate to the other party, you can confirm the degree to which the information can be accurate. The two villagers may discuss the direction and distance between the two counties, but they will never study the relationship between the two villages. However, this does not prevent you from discussing the right and right sides of the village widow's door. At this time, if a person says that I have been to your county, the topic will continue to focus on the location where he has been.

This story is the original LBS + SNS model. Unfortunately, there are not many people who can understand and apply this feature. The key lies in the granularity of Information Filtering. If two strangers get together and start to tell each other which village I belong to, it is estimated that there will be no villagers in the world, and there will be two tearful stories.

Tags of geographic location Information and Privacy Protection

The information filtering method mentioned above is effective privacy protection in the process of sending or broadcasting information. It is the easiest way to classify the precise degree of geographic location information. For the vast majority of people, the current position is marked as: on the earth, it should not be considered a leak of personal privacy. Further, it is not difficult to identify the country where I have been, or even mark all the countries I have been. Most of the time, I don't mind if other people know whether I am at work or at home. The Unit Address is also public. If you are at home, you only need to know where I am at home. In this way, someone will not come to my house to knock on the door, but he can call me and ask me to go out to eat. This is a degree of control. If I work in an enterprise or in a public place, I can give more detailed coordinates. If I need to make an appointment with other people to get together, I must send the most detailed location directly.

For users who cannot get too many valuable services, it is difficult to force them to Check in. The best way is to enable automatic location labeling when privacy information is well protected. Some software has implemented this function. For example, @ Trip can automatically record the GPS location, Google's horizontal and horizontal, and also automatically record the location. Some instant messaging tools will write the current location on the title each time they log on. There are also many photo management websites or services that will be automatically marked based on the GPS signals stored in the photos. When Weibo can be used on mobile phones, the system automatically prompts whether to send the location as well.

Information Organization

Whether the information should be obtained or pushed. This is a contradiction. Most people do not like to be disturbed by a large amount of irrelevant information. However, sellers don't just want to sit there and wait.

As mentioned above, for those who use the LBS service, what they expect is a managed or guided, companion service. You do not want to query and obtain information on your own. But now the advertising information has been flooded, so we have to perform information extraction.

Is it possible to classify, organize, and merge messy ad information to extract useful content? It should be okay. Now we can get a lot of advertisement information. According to the content in the information, such as: catering, a variety of cuisines, nutritional collocation, seasonal new dishes and so on. What do travel agencies say when they recommend hotels in tourist attractions to us? What are the characteristics here? several restaurants taste good, with fresh dishes and reasonable prices. Then let the person who makes the travel plan choose. If the information is sufficiently refined and can be sent to different users according to their needs. In this way, users will not be disgusted with being disturbed by push information.

Summary

LBS should provide information forwarding services for sellers, people, and people. In this process, it is best for a person to automatically submit the location information to the server. Others can view the information of the corresponding level based on the time, location, or permission restriction. All advertising and push information can be automatically classified, filtered, and summarized, and pushed to the user. Users are like using a companion consulting service. Original article: lukefan.com)