The industry is abuzz at present with many people talking about the endless opportunities and possibilities around BLE Beacons, and amidst all the discussion remains a large amount of confusion around different beacon technologies be they iBeacon, PayPal Beacon or one of the many other types of beacon. Several heated exchanges continue, especially with many observers questioning the future of NFC in light of the much-anticipated upcoming adoption of BLE Beacons. To fully understand the pros and cons of BLE Beacons, it’s first necessary to take a step back and consider the original aims of location-based services (LBS) and the notion of ‘right-time’ marketing that is so often discussed. Location-based services (LBS) are nothing new. Ever since the mass adoption of smartphones several years ago there has been an endless stream of LBS solution vendors vying to dominate the market. The likes of Foursquare, TagTile, Shopkick as well as numerous others have in the past demonstrated novel and innovative ways of detecting or recognising when a consumer was at a given location, but one thing persisted across all of these solutions, a high level of friction, that deterred all but the most motived and proactive consumers from actively participating. The [...]
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