Top 10 Location-Based Social Networks

That's a lot of competitors in the location-based social connections space, and an awful lot of competitors focused on friends finding each other around town.

CheckPoints will plot a different course, selling mobile access and connections with potential customers when those users are physically in stores.

If most check-in services today are aimed at younger users who most likely are single, CheckPoints is aimed at most other people who shop, including mothers who might be at Target or Wal-Mart.


Todd DiPaola, CheckPoints CEO, is pretty sure there are lots of practical things check-in services can provide, other than young people meeting each other.

Consider the $100 billion or so large consumer packaged goods companies spend to promote their brands and products using coupons and other activities. CheckPoints believes there is a major business for a “check in” app that actually can be used by major CPG brands to interact with consumers while those consumers are inside retail locations where their goods are sold.

Launching in mid-to-late September, CheckPoints will offer a campagin-based service that allows brands to connect in various ways with consumers inside retail outlets, using an application that includes a bar code reader. Swiping the reader automatically creates a check-in and then can trigger an immersive rich media session, a Facebook or Twitter connection or any other connection a CPG company can envision that includes a web address.

CheckPoints appears to be among the very-first firms to use social connections and location in a way that is directly of benefit to most large consumer products brands.

If a user goes to the grocery store, a check in occurs and CheckPoints alerts the user to participaing products in the store. Users don’t need to buy the product, and just need to scan the barcode of featured products.

Users get points or coupons that can be used to get goods ranging from airline miles to electronics.
The CheckPoints app awards points to consumers who check in at retail locations, scan product barcodes and play interactive games. Points can be redeemed in the CheckPoints Reward Store.

The system might be likened to a combinatiion loyalty program and point-of-presence marketing tool, with game or entertainment aspects.

For brands, the opportunity is to target and reach potential prospects while they are actually inside retail locations, in real time. From the CheckPoints perspective, what is attractive is that there is no need to strike deals with actual retailers, but only the brands themselves.

DiPaola says users can download the app and start using it right away, without creating more-detailed profiles. After users redeem rewards, they can share with friends to win additional points.

The company is self-financed at a level DiPaola says will allow it to reach critical mass without additional outside funding.

Mobile Video: "Developing" Regions Use More Than North Americans

North Americans are less than half as likely as the global average to watch online video using a mobile device, according to a new study from The Nielsen Company. The somewhat-surprising finding suggests that mobile video services might be more important to users in many parts of the world other than North America or Europe.

As a region, North America only scores 45 on the Index of Mobile Video Usage (Past 30 Days).

With a score of 100 representing the global average, this means North Americans are 55 percent less likely to watch mobile video than international online consumers as a whole.

nielsen-video-mobile-nation-august-2010

Almost A Third Of U.S. Households Have Cut The Landline Cord

Almost 30 percent of U.S. households have cut the cord, up from about 25 percent a year ago, says Citi Investment Research analyst Jason Bazinet.

Over the past nine quarters, wireless substitution has accelerated, with more than one percent of households cutting the cord every quarter, or five percent a year, Bazinet says.

Almost A Third Of U.S. Households Have Cut The Landline Cord

Intel Buys McAfee: Why?

Intel Corporation is acquiring security software firm McAfee. The $7.68 billion deal has been approved by boards of both companies. So why is the chipmaker buying a security software firm? One can argue it is a move "up the stack" from hardware to applications. That is true, but probably not the key driver.

Intel now can craft products that combine hardware and software, and that is an upside. But perhaps the most compelling argument is that Internet devices now are moving away from PCs and other similar devices to other machines that one does not traditionally associate with security suites, such as sensor networks, automated teller machines, medical devices, cars or TVs.

Intel now appears to regard security for all those devices, and its chip-buying customers, to be on par with its strategic focus areas in energy-efficient performance and Internet connectivity.

Intel Changes The Game With McAfee Buyout

A Net Neutrality "Grand Compromise" is Necessary, Not an Option

At the end of the day, unless the major stakeholders in the network neutrality debate can come to some enduring compromise, broadband investment in the United States is likely to be quite constrained.

That is why agreements such as Google and Verizon have struck, are so important. At the end of the day, unless private commercial interests can be persuaded there is a way forward that encompasses all the key interests, there can be no outcome satisfactory for the public interest, either.

This one graphic suggests why ISPs, as well as application providers, will have to reach a grand compromise. Voice, for over 100 years, has been the underpinning for all public networks, but that is not going to be the case in the future. For the moment, voice continues to underpin mobile and fixed networks.

But nobody believes that will last. ISPs and service providers must find ways to at least replace the lost voice revenues with new revenue sources. Application providers, specifically, and the public interest, in general, also require robust investment in the new broadband and IP networks of the future. But investments always require some expectation of profit. Absent that, investment will not happen.

ISPs are going to have to give up some possible revenue streams. That is what the Google-Verizon agreement stipulates, in essence.

But application providers are going to have to give some ground on network management. Without such agreement, broadband investment will be imperiled. Some do not believe that to be the case, to be sure.

But the investment community has spoken loud and clear, for decades, about broadband and capacity upgrades by cable and telcos that investors worried would not provide a financial return. If one believed that the federal government, or other units of government, could make those investments after private interest collapsed, then collapse would not permanently affect broadband deployment.

But there is not such option any longer. U.S. networks will be built by private investment, or not at all. Despite some carping, that is why the Google-Verizon agreement is so important, and why wider industry agreement on some grand compromise, is essential, not optional. Nobody is going to get everything they might want. But all of us need to get enough to keep moving forward.

The worst outcome for the public interest is continued stalemate.

Private Net Neutality Discussions Restarted

Some key Internet and telecommunications firms apparently have restarted private talks to develop a proposal for how Internet traffic should be managed, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The new discussions are hosted at the offices of the Information Technology Industry Council, a Washington-based lobbying group that represents dozens of tech companies.

Cisco Systems Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are said to be among the firms trying to reach some agreement satisfactory to the stakeholders and the Federal Communications Commission. Apparently Google and the FCC are not at present involved in the talks.

Facebook Message Congestion?

As is the case with Twitter, mobile users tend to receive many more Facebook, than text messages, in a month's time.

That might suggest more reliance on Facebook and Twitter for communication programs is a reasonable decision.

But it might also indicate the odds of getting noticed are much lower for Facebook or Twitter campaigns.