Sense Networks Indexes The Real World Using Mobile Location Data

With the emergence of new generation of mobile wireless networks, such as 3G, WiMax etc,  the wired and wireless networks are expected to be seamlessly connected. The era of mobile digital life has not really come yet in the global market, although we have seen many web service and applications have gone mobile by launching their mobile version of sites, releasing new versions on mobile platform etc. The first question we really need think about right now is that what the killer application(s) will be to attract the consumers. 

In Web 2.0, most of the content is generated by users intentionally, i.e. we create the content and upload it to the server manually. Is it possible to collect the data directly and automatically from our social life so everyone can benefit from it because it reflects the real life. If it is a Yes, then the wireless industry will be a huge market for it.

How to moneytize the mobile applications? Currently we have some relatively mature models such as value-added service and mobile billing systems, and the industry is looking at mobile Ads markets too. With the availability of new generation of wireless networks, new mobile applications and more valuable mobile data, the mobile market looks very promising!

Thanks to Greg Skibiski, CEO of Sense Networks and David Blumenstein, member of the Advisory Board. When they introduced me their impressive product and service, I said, that is the Mobile 2.0 I am always thinking about.

New York City based today announced the launch of the company Sense Networks as well as Macrosense™, a software platform that leverages patent-pending technology to analyze historical and real-time location data from mobile devices. The company is also debuting the alpha version of a real-time social navigation and nightlife discovery application, Citysense™.

Greg Skibiski, CEO and co-founder of Sense Networks said:

“The Macrosense platform enables an entirely new business model for location based services. Location data is monetized by companies and investors who receive value from understanding emerging trends in real-time, while consumers receive compelling applications free of intrusive mobile advertising, remaining completely anonymous.”

THE MACROSENSE PLATFORM

Macrosense collects massive amounts of anonymous location data emitted from mobile phones and automobiles. The platform leverages machine learning technology to analyze each new data point in the context of billions of historic location data points. This allows companies and investors to quantify aggregate consumer behavior and uncover macro trends in spending and sentiment in real-time.

“Just as Google indexed pages on the Internet to optimize web discovery, Sense Networks has indexed the real places in a city and characterized them by activity, versus proximity or demographics, to better understand the context of consumers’ offline behavior,” said Tony Jebara, Chief Scientist, co-founder of Sense Networks, and Director of the Machine Learning Laboratory at Columbia University. “Due to the high dimensionality of location and time data, Sense Networks had to develop a revolutionary approach to effectively reduce the number of dimensions and scale the system.”

CITYSENSE

The Citysense alpha release is a mobile map application that shows users nightlife hotspots in real-time, initially in the city of San Francisco. Users can identify the busiest places, with another option to only view spots with unusually high activity based on years of historic data. From any real-time hotspot, the application allows one-click searching of nightlife activities and restaurants in that area on Google and Yelp.

“Citysense demonstrates the power of combining anonymous, aggregate location data for social navigation,” said Sandy Pentland, Chief Privacy Advocate, co-founder of Sense Networks, and Director of Human Dynamics Research at MIT. “The idea is similar to automobile GPS systems sharing and pooling current road speed conditions so that everyone can avoid congestion.”

Users can download Citysense software today on BlackBerry® phones from its web site. A version for Apple’s iPhone will be available when the iPhone App Store launches.