Location Based Services, How they will change the world as we know it

Location Based Services, (LBS) are a major trend amongst small businesses and large corporations,   the first, are learning at a quite fast pace how important is to be accurately located and to be found by potential customers, the website has proven to be an expensive and time consuming advertising way in a trillion sites cloud, where only the most powerful survive and make real business. Local searches are now the way to focus, and here is where large corporations have shifted their focus on.
The Smartphone and Tablets have kickstarted this new way of marketing our businesses, and numbers prove this is not a fading trend at all, but the way things are going to be from now on.
Users want to find businesses around them, meet friends and locate deals and places while walking or driving, and theis portable devices are there for them at all times, democracy has finally arrived, as what really matters is how close we are to what we need, not so much how much a company has paid on advertising, if one can click to call for a service that is near and provides what is needed there and then the decision is easy to make.

Here's an overview of a few ways location-based data is transforming the mobile ecosystem:

• Location-enabled mobile ads: have generated excitement for their effectiveness and the impressive prices they command. The simple fact of a user being physically close to a business, within two miles or so, gives a significant lift to click-through rates on mobile banner ads. Many mobile ad trading platforms are reporting triple-digit increases in location-enabled impressions. However, it turns out some of the underlying location data is unreliable.
• Location-based features: have turned out to be great for boosting engagement on apps. Facebook, Google, Yelp, Instagram, Groupon, Twitter and dozens of other popular apps offer location-enabled features. These mobile properties, and many others, have moved beyond the "check-in" concept, which in any case never really caught on with users. They may still offer the ability to "check-in," but are also trying to be more imaginative with location-based notifications and location-aware services.
• Local data based search: can connect hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses to the mobile economy. Google highlights the "local mobile consumer," in its ad sales material, and touts statistics that show a third of mobile searches have local intent, and that 94% of smartphone users have searched for local information. In a Google survey, 76% of the respondents said they would like businesses' location or operating hours, and 61% said they would like to be able to "Click to call" the business.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/location-data-is-transforming-mobile-2013-4#ixzz2SOu7TvyV