Want to be have a successful location based service? Need to know the secret to location based services success? TruePosition, a respected name in the field of location based services, identified what it calls the seven "key drivers" to the success of LBS:

1. Superior phones
2. Better user interfaces on the applications
3. Improved databases of useful information
4. Greater understanding of social networking
5. Increased awareness of location based services among enterprises and consumers
6. More cost effective subscription plans
7. Increased performance of the location technologies powering location based services

We commend TruePosition for attempting to simplify a complex business problem and we whole heartedly agree with them. All identified drivers, some more than others, make sense and are key to successful location-aware services. My only issue is that the list misses one important driver - privacy & safety.

It seems that when ever people hear about a location aware service - "the service knows where you are, and you get content based on your location" or " friends can know each others locations", their initial response is "that's scary!" A large proportion of the people think that companies or the government will use location technologies to track them, or worse, a pedophile may use it to track their kids. This is an issue that has to be addressed for any location aware service to succeed.

Wall St. Journal best portrays what is the mainstream's biggest concern with location based services - privacy & safety. The article mentions that Loopt's CEO went through 2 hours of grilling about his service's privacy and safety standards by Sprint's lawyers and Loopt was still required to add an additional layer of privacy features in order to close the deal.

Every new technology brings its own privacy & safety challenges. There are daily news occurrences of credit fraud and identity theft on the internet. Location based services are no different, there is the possibility of using this great technology to do bad things. Location aware service providers will have to guarantee the safety of their users, even if it means a longer sign-up process or offering a product with less capability.

We predict that with the advances in handset and network technologies, the safety issue will be resolved. When this and the 7 drivers identified by TruePosition (especially no. 5 - increased customer awareness) happen, location based services will take off and add a lot of value to our lives.