In particular, one of the areas in which I am seeing tremendous growth is location-based listening and analytics. As more and more companies adapt a listening strategy — in many cases, using advanced tools like Sysomos and Radian6 (now part of Salesforce.com’s MarketingCloud) — some are starting to look at the possibilities of going deeper.

During a recent interview with colleague and co-author of Digital Marketing Analytics, Chuck Hemann, he explained, ”to date, social media monitoring has been helpful to marketers who wanted to understand how customers perceived the brand. As marketing has gone more local, however, knowing how people feel about a brand within a more narrow geography has been critical.”

Chuck’s point isn’t that marketers should abandon social media monitoring in place of location-based monitoring, but rather that the two in combination can be powerful. “Knowing how people feel about the brand in Portland, Oregon, for example, versus the rest of the country allows marketers to be more targeted and flexible with their content development.”

In addition to marketers needing to think beyond traditional social media listening tactics (who ever thought we would call social media listening “traditional”?), it’s also time for Foursquare and other location-based applications to move beyond the baseline metrics like number of check-ins, top locations, etc.

If a brand is going to partner with someone like Foursquare, there need to be meatier metrics like conversions or even the ability to “plug in” to back-end POS systems. Companies like Momentfeed are pushing location-based data providers to think beyond the basics, but we still have a ways to go.

A listening lens over London’s O2 provided by Austin-based company, SnapTrends

Ways Businesses Can Use Location-Based Listening & Analytics

Many interesting developments have been occurring in the area of location-based analytics. Companies can not only search for what’s happening across the social Web by keyword(s) but can now start drilling down into specific locations, including buildings. Of course, this type of listening only includes publicly available social media updates; but, with the right strategies, these insights can be quite helpful. A few examples of what’s possible with this type of listening:

• Retailers/restaurants can listen over malls or downtown areas for potential customers that are looking for a pair of jeans, a burger or a printing service. If they choose, they can even respond to them with an offer.
• Any marketer launching a new campaign can listen over stores that distribute its product to determine shopper or employee reactions.
• Companies looking to do better customer service or to gauge employee satisfaction can listen over key locations.
• Knowing how people are talking about a specific event can be very useful when monitoring activity during an event. This technology tells you who is talking, where specifically they are talking, and what their potential reach could be. If you are monitoring that activity, you can then read and respond in real time to further boost the attention that your event may be receiving.

As Chuck and I noted earlier, both traditional social media and location-based listening/analytics are powerful in and of themselves, but engaging in both simultaneously should give marketers insights well beyond what they are currently seeing. Evaluating what conversations are happening regionally versus in the broader market can help isolate problems or opportunities that would normally go unnoticed. It’s this type of vision that will give smart companies a competitive edge in the future.

What The Future Holds In Store

As we continue to use smartphones and tablets more frequently to update our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Foursquare and YouTube accounts, these localized data streams will become richer and richer. Obviously, the companies tapping into these rich new sources of information must be prudent with how they use this data — particularly if they plan to interact with potential customers. But, just like with e-mail, companies have figured out how to derive value without invading peoples’ privacy.

In the future, things will get interesting when location-based data can  be connected to customer relationship management (CRM) and point of sale (POS) data. We’re not that far off from this model, as evidenced by the recent announcement by Facebook that it is partnering with Axciom and Epsilon to connect the dots between user profiles and in store purchases. We will see more and more of these types of partnerships in the near future.

To that end, I know that there is research that shows that an increasing number of people are “scanning a QR code,” but what I haven’t been able to find are statistics that show repeat usage. My guess is that there is a reason for that.

The History Of QR Codes

Taking a step back, QR codes (short for “quick response” codes) were first created by the automotive industry in Japan back in 1994. Somewhere around two to three years ago in the United States, these strange looking squares became the talk of the town and started appearing everywhere; on t-shirts, outdoor ads, food labels — you name it.

The idea was simple — we now had an easy way to connect the offline world to the online world with a mere scan using our smart phones. With over 50% of people in the U.S. now possessing a smart phone, you would think this technology would be gaining in popularity. It’s not.

To be honest, I was a big proponent of QR codes starting somewhere in 2009/2010. I remember putting a huge QR code on the back of some custom t-shirts that my co-author, Mike Schneider, and I created to promote our book launch during SXSW Interactive back in 2011.

Over the last 12 months, however, I’ve had a change of heart; and, I can’t seem to find anyone who disagrees with me. In fact, the thing that prompted me to write this post was an older write up in AdAge by B.L. Ochman that Syracuse smartie, Chanda Picott, alerted me to the other day. The post by Ochman claimed that while QR codes may not be dead, they are certainly misused. It’s worth noting that she wrote this post in 2011.

The big question we should all be asking is, why hasn’t something as promising as the QR code gained more traction in the 10 years of its existence? Below are five reasons I see that prevented this fairly simple technology from living up to its promise.

5 Reasons For The Death Of QR Codes

1. Apple and Android have yet to ship a phone with a QR reader pre-loaded. This is — and will be — a deal breaker in most cases, given the fact that these two mobile platforms accounted for north of 87.6% of all smart phones sold worldwide in 2012.
2. In many cases, the mobile experience sitting behind the QR code is a disappointment. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried scanning these codes only to be taken to non-mobile optimized sites, or worse, to a site where I scratched my head wondering what the connection to the original call-to-action was.
3. Some QR codes end up in places with no wifi or connectivity on your phone (airplane, subway station). This is an obvious fail.
4. Many consumer packaged goods companies feel that committing valuable space on their label/packaging to a standard UPC code and a QR code is overkill. And, in many cases, they focus on leveraging the UPC bar code to connect to an online experience (Weight Watchers’ mobile application lets you scan bar codes to give you nutritional information and provides number of “points” in a particular product).
5. Even when a QR code is done right (link to mobile-optimized site, available connectivity, clear call-to-action), it’s hard to convince oneself that the minute it takes to pull out your phone, open up a scan-friendly app (assuming one had been downloaded), scan the QR code and then wait for the experience to load, is worth it.

Alternatives To QR Codes

So, as a marketer, what’s the alternative to QR codes? While no clear leader has emerged, here are a few technologies — some new, some existing — that can help provide a richer, or at least simpler, experience as we work to connect the offline world to the online:

• SMS short codes — every mobile phone has functionality that allows users to text. Short codes are an easy way to punch in five numbers and receive back information (usually a link) that can connect one to an online experience. This isn’t a super sexy solution, but sometimes, the simplest answer is the best answer.
• Augmented reality apps — these new technologies do require the download of a mobile app, but the payoff is immediate and allows for a much richer experience. Creating the experience requires more effort on the part of a company/marketer; but in the end, the result should be more engagement and adoption by the end user.
• Mobile apps, like Weight Watchers, that allow mobile interaction with existing UPC bar codes — this gets back to the “sometimes simpler is better” principle, and nearly every package/label in the world has a UPC bar code on it. Using that as the catalyst for an online interaction versus creating a new code that takes up additional space at least lowers the barrier to entry on the part of the marketer.
• Bluetooth and NFC (nearfield communication) — while these technologies are still in the nascent stages when it comes to communication between ads/products and mobile phones, they will become more prevalent over time and will require minimal effort on the part of the end user.

In summary, we humans are creatures of habit. We are always willing to try new technologies, but when the value of the outcomes is not commensurate with the level of effort required, we move on.

In the case of QR codes, there are simply too many barriers existing to make the experience worthwhile. And to that end, for every story I hear like that of friend Eric Miltsch’s, I hear a dozen more like that from Nathan Greenberg. I’d love to be proven wrong, but I don’t think I will.

If you have a success story or want to argue to the contrary, I look forward to discussing in the comments below.

Over the last couple of years, many of the original location-based services have been acquired or have gone out of business. But foursquare still stands in spite of the fact that it still hasn’t caught fire like many of us hoped it would.

While foursquare has stalled out around 25 million users, it is still a force to be reckoned with and worth considering as part of any company’s marketing mix (that goes double for any live event).

Foursquare Marketing Basics

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a back-to-basics post on foursquare that doesn’t just focus on the offers, but gets into some of the other considerations that are a must for a good foursquare campaign. There are plenty of others, but this should help get your creative juices flowing:

• Set goals: This probably sounds like a no-brainer, but as a business owner, it’s sometimes tempting to jump in feet first. Given the fact that your business will need to spend time and energy against this effort, knowing what activities you are trying to drive (foot traffic, loyalty, awareness via sharing across social networks, share of wallet) is critical to measuring your ultimate success.

• Claim your business: It’s pretty easy to get your business set up (or claimed if a customer has already set it up). The easiest way to get started is to open up foursquare on your mobile phone, search for your business and then…

• Reach out to your Influencers:  Find out who your influencers are (the mayor or the person at the top of your leader board is usually a good place to start) and get to know them. Heck, invite them in for coffee, lunch, a wine tasting… You can do this individually or as a group.

• Create a special strategy: Understanding what types of offers you’d like to make available (discounts, informational, experiential, give aways) is helpful to establish up front. Note that you don’t need to give away the farm, but you also want to make sure you’re providing enough value to encourage checkins.

• Test out different specials: Foursquare now gives you the ability to pick different specials. It’s a little hard to find them on their site so I’ve listed the types of specials along with descriptions below:

• Swarm Special – Like, “If 30 people check in at once, get 25 cent wings”
• Friends Special – Like, “Check in with 3 friends and get a free dessert”
• Flash Special- Like, “The first 10 people that check in after 8pm get 25% off their order”
• Newbie Special - Like, “Get a free cupcake on your first check-in”
• Check-in Special - Like, “Get a free appetizer when you check in”
• Loyalty Special - Like, “Get a free cookie every 3rd check-in”
• Mayor Special - Like, “Mayor gets 20% off their entire bill”

• Measure, refine and optimize: This one is pretty straightforward. Have a plan and execute against it.

• Let people know about your campaign: Remember to let people know about your program by putting up signs, telling them in your newsletter, including a mention on your “on hold” music, etc. In fact, foursquare offers free decals for your door if you want to order them.

• Train your staff: This means that if you are going to run a location-based marketing campaign, train your employees. Train yourself. And make sure you have whatever it is that you’re promising. Not operationalizing is where many companies fall down. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to redeem an offer only to have an employee stare at me with that deer-in-the-headlights look.

• Experiment with paid: As with any other social activity, it is worth testing some paid activity with foursquare’s local updates and promoted updates. These allow you to let people who are using the “Explore” button or are checking in nearby to see your business, even if they’ve never checked in there before.

• Download the business app: The business app is a relatively new offering and better yet, it’s free. This allows you to track activity (who is in your business), specials (update/change) and analytics in real time.

• Measure your efforts: While foursquare doesn’t provide the most robust analytics dashboard, you can see important activity from your venue once you’ve claimed your business. This dashboard provides information on daily checkin activity, special redemption, top people checking in, etc.

In conjunction with foursquare, don’t forget to do similar activities on places like Yelp, Google Places and Facebook. More on how to best activate on those other channels in an upcoming post!

Last year, the belles of the ball were three companies – Sonar, Highlight and banjo – which introduced the concept of something called a proximity service. The value proposition with this type of service is that if you connect these apps to your social/location-based networks, it can alert you when someone in your social graph is nearby.

During this ten-minute video podcast, my co-host Kyle Flaherty and I recorded last year at SXSW with book co-author Mike Schneider and Sonar CEO Brett Martin, we discuss the benefits and drawbacks of these services.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What’s interesting is that if we fast forward a year, these proximity services haven’t progressed significantly from an adoption or technology perspective. I still see people using them, and once in a blue moon, I’ll flip one, especially if I’m traveling in another city.

The problem is, as stand alone applications, proximity services aren’t particularly helpful for the average person. Most people don’t have a ton of people in their social graph (average number of friends on Facebook is still in the hundreds) and on average, most people don’t travel far beyond the same four or five places every day (home, coffee shop, work, daycare, etc.)

But, all hope is not lost for these services. And in fact, there are several practical applications for these types of services (I also expect to see an acquisition or consolidation or two this year) in the not too distant future.

• What if when you walked into a retail shop, you could immediately be alerted to which of your favorite reps are on the floor. Or maybe your least favorite reps. Go one better, think about the ability of businesses being able to incorporate proximity services into their loyalty programs so the minute you walk in, they know who you are, what your preferences are and could greet you by name?

• Think about the possibility of an airline knowing where its passengers are the moment they enter an airport, allowing them to not only intelligently alert customers (your flight is delayed so don’t worry about rushing through security) or letting passengers know that their gate has changed, presenting them with directions on the fastest way to get there?

• And finally, think about your favorite coffee shop being notified that you are within a half mile and being able to correlate it with the fact that you are within 15 minutes of the time you normally stop by. Instead of making you wait in line, your mobile app pops up a message that asks if you are coming in and if so, do you plan to get your usual skinny cinnamon latte so that they can have it waiting when you arrive.

I’m not suggesting that there isn’t a value to proximity services but, as currently constituted, there just isn’t enough “there” there. Over time, however, as we all become more connected, more comfortable with technology/privacy/security, there will be a greater desire to know which of your friends, co-workers and family members are nearby. In the meantime, don’t expect to hear that any of the current proximity services have gone over the 100 million member mark.

Mobile has started to play a huge role in marketing over the last couple of years, and this year will be no different. In fact, I am going to be so bold as to say that this is the year that mobile finally breaks out and has that hero moment that prognosticators have been talking about for the last 10-12 years.

Before I dig into my five predictions though, it is probably worth looking at a little background data that have helped inform my thinking.

Key Mobile/Social Statistics

• The U.S. has the second highest number of mobile subscribers in the world with 172 million (China is first with 270 million). Smart phones account for 48% of those subscriptions (Mary Meeker, Analyst at KPCB, 12/2012).
• 29% of U.S. Adults own a tablet or eReader (like a Kindle) — up from 2% in 2009 (Mary Meeker, Analyst at KPCB, 12/2012).
• 24% of online shopping on Black Friday 2012 in the U.S. came from mobile devices + tablets — up from 6% in 2010. Traffic from iOS (Apple devices) was 4X that of devices using the Android platform (Mary Meeker, Analyst at KPCB, 12/2012).
• 60% of iOS users are on latest operating system, iOS6, which enables Apple Passbook (C|Net, 10/2012).
• 74% of U.S. smartphone owners get real-time, location-based information on their phones as of February 2012, up from 55% in May 2011 (Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, 5/2012).
• 18% of U.S. smartphone owners are using geosocial services like foursquare to check in to certain places and share their location with friends, up from 12% in 2011 (Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, 5/2012).
• U.S. users of both location-aware services as well as geosocial services skew more female than male — 75% to 73%/20% to 17%. They also have higher household incomes — 79% have HH incomes of $75,000+. And more education — 79% are college grad or above  (Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, 5/2012).
• User stats for key platforms as of 1/3/2013:
  • Facebook – 1.2B users globally, 168.8M in the U.S. Of those, 54% of global users access Facebook via mobile (socialbakers, 1/2013).
  • Instagram – 45M monthly average users globally (AppData 1/2013).
  • Twitter – 500M users globally, 140M in U.S. 60% of those users access Twitter via Mobile (VentureBeat, 7/2012 | AllThingsD, 6/2012).
  • Foursquare – 25M users globally (Foursquare, 9/2012).

Predictions

While metrics can all be manipulated, I’ve been tracking the numbers above for a while, so I have a pretty good feel for the shortcomings/exaggerations. With that background, here are my five predictions for 2013:

Apple Passbook Dominates As Mobile Commerce/Location-Aware Platform

As I mentioned in a recent post, I am bullish on one of Apple’s latest features released as part of iOS6 along with the iPhone 5. This feature, called Apple Passbook, allows brands to push passes, coupons, gift cards and loyalty programs into a perma-app (one that cannot be deleted) for anyone with an iPhone 4 or greater running iOS6. There are three reasons why marketers should be excited about this app:

1. It’s Apple, and a lot of people own Apple mobile devices
2. In addition to Passbook itself being impossible to delete, Apple has made it really hard to find the delete button for items stored in Passbook, so once the user has accepted the coupon/card, it tends to stay in their digital wallet
3. The app itself is time- and location-aware; you can also update it/personalize it on the back end which can create text-level messaging type alerts on the phone

It’s no secret that Facebook is huge. The nearly 170 million users in the U.S. have an average of 130 friends and spend nearly 400 minutes a month on the site. But up until now, Facebook has struggled with the unlocking the power of mobile despite nearly 60% of its users accessing the site via a mobile device.

Some of you may remember that Facebook has flirted with location-based functionality when it created Places in 2010, only to pull the plug a year later… though it really never got pulled.

They’ve also experimented with Facebook Deals — Groupon-like functionality targeted at local venues that never really took off. But with the announcement of Nearby, they may finally be cracking the code on mobile by leveraging the nearly always on state of the app/mobile website combined with the power of 1.2 billion global users who spend a heck of a lot of time feeding structured and unstructured data into the mix. What this essentially does is allow Facebook (minus the gamification) to out-foursquare, foursquare.

In addition to new functionality like Nearby, I also anticipate that Facebook will do more to tap into major (Instagram) and minor (Gowalla) acquisitions in 2013. The Instagram investment was a no-brainer given the fact that so many of us (65%) are visual learners combined with the fact that Millenials are flocking to the photo sharing site in droves.

To date, we haven’t seen many manifestations of the Gowalla acquisition (mostly a talent buy), but I assume that Josh Williams and Scott Raymond will make their presences felt by unleashing some of the elegant visuals and beautiful UI that their Gowalla app brought to the table from 2009-2012.

Mobile Analytics/Measurement Gets A Seat At The Adult Table

To date, mobile analytics have been the redheaded step child when it comes to data that CMOs care about. Like spinach, mobile data is something you know you should eat/pay attention to but don’t really take the time to or try and avoid whenever possible.

As the importance of mobile grows in 2013 (see the stat above regarding 29% of all Black Friday sales coming from a tablet/mobile device), the marketing suite will wake up and realize that understanding mobile behavior is critical to creating deeper relationships with their customers. MediaPost does a great job spelling out the five areas that will be most impacted in their mobile measurement predictions post here.

Location-Based Applications Become Passive/Always On/More Aware

My co-author, Mike Schneider, and I have long talked about the evolution of location-based services moving from an active to a passive activity. While it’s sometimes fun to pull out one’s phone, look up a location, add a picture and/or a little color commentary and check in to a venue, it’s also awkward and time consuming.

The goal for companies like foursquare was to encourage businesses to provide relevant-enough offers to encourage customers to check in regularly. Unfortunately, most didn’t (partly foursquare’s fault for not better arming their customers).

Now, the game shifts to more location-aware applications that collect data or alert a customer to something they’ve indicated is of interest. This can be as simple as reminding someone that they are in the bread aisle at the grocery store and that they need to pick up bagels. Or, it could tie into a loyalty program where every time you visit the local hardware store, you are auto-checked in and get points/cash/coupons for each visit and/or purchase.

Hand-in-hand with the location-aware trend are a new breed of applications that cropped up in early 2012, like Sonar, banjo and Highlight, that alert people when other people in their network (or friends of friends within their network) are nearby.

While there has been a lot of controversy about these applications and how they could put people at risk or breach their privacy, at the end of the day, we as the end users are always in control of who sees what. However, I’m not sure  this group will make it as stand alone apps. They will likely be acquired by the likes of Google, Twitter, Facebook in order to make their existing offerings that much stronger/smarter.

Hyper-Local Location Technology — Geofencing And Low-Energy Bluetooth Become Big With Retailers

The ability to get hyper-local — whether it be for mapping purposes, in-store targeting, etc. — exists today. In fact, many amusement parks like Seaworld use hyper-local mapping in their apps to help customers navigate their properties. Google is also providing hyper-local or indoor maps in places like Las Vegas so visitors can find their way around some of the hotels/casinos that are often a mile or two from one end to another.

This new trend should allow customers to better navigate within stores. Combined with geofencing, or virtual fences using wifi or sound waves, retailers will have the ability to know where customers are in their stores and can help them navigate better and even present real-time offers based on demographic profiles/loyalty programs.

I’ve heard recently of a few companies exploring the idea of using low-energy bluetooth technology to trigger activities on mobile devices/applications when customers are nearby. While this is likely a stop gap until Near Field Communication is ready for prime time, it’s also a solid, inexpensive way of connecting with customers. I predict that at least two or three major retailers pilot this technology in 2013.

Conclusion

I know that there are probably 100 things I missed in my predictions. That doesn’t mean they aren’t important, but that I needed to keep this post from running into the 1,200 word realm.

If you have a topic that you think will dramatically impact mobile in 2013, please include it in the comments. Also feel free to ping me and I will be happy to consider topics for future columns.

A tip of the hat to Chris Hershberger, David Fossas, Mike Schneider, Heather Strout and Melanie Strout for providing me fodder for this post.

Doing a Google search tends to bring up a lot of old posts — many of which are outdated — or lists that focus on consumer or gaming apps. A few of the good lists are mixes of business and consumer or are more niche and target small business only. So my early Christmas/Chanukah gift to you all is a list of the thirty essential business apps for your smartphone that won’t disappoint.

Many of the apps listed below are already on my phone. Some, I wrote about in the book, Location-Based Marketing for Dummies with co-author, Mike Schneider. A few others have been collected from several of my smart business/mobile-savvy friends.

I’ve also grouped the apps by category, so in some cases, you don’t need to worry about downloading all the apps, just one or two in the category (for instance, you may not need Square and LevelUp).

Productivity Apps

• Leaf.Me - CRM for your business activities
• Expensify – save and track all expenses via mobile
• LogMeIn - access, support and manage devices from anywhere at anytime
• LastPass.com - save your passwords in one place
• Dropbox - save all your documents securely in the cloud
• DocuSign - send, sign and save documents anywhere, on any device
• MobileDay - allows users to “one touch” into any conference call
• Harvest - simple online time tracking
• Prezi - next generation “communication tool that helps you organize, present, and share your ideas” — now available on your mobile devices
• any.do - reminds you of important meetings and dates
• Phonedeck - smart contact list for your smart phone – no syncing required

Travel Apps

• Uber – summon cabs and town cars right from your phone with hassle-free payment
• FlightAware – real time flight notifications, maps and gate changes
• Tripit - centralizes all trip activity — allows for forwarding of itineraries to plans@tripit.com
• Kayak – easy-to-use aggregator of airline, hotel and rental car booking information
• Note, while I don’t want to single out any one airline, many of their applications (American, JetBlue, United, Southwest) are great for mobile boarding passes, booking travel, or tracking existing flights. the same could be said for some of the major hotel and rental car brands.

Internal Collaboration/Communication Apps

Mapping/GPS Apps

• Waze - turn-by-turn directions on your phone overlaid with crowd-sourced traffic (and law enforcement) updates
• Google Maps / Apple Maps - These are well-known applications that come standard on most Android and iOS-based phones; Both get the job done when it comes to maps, GPS and directions
• HopStop - compare different ways to get to a destination via public transportation

Read it Later/Virtual Notepad Apps

• Pocket – allows to read news/blogs, view pictures and watch videos later
• Instapaper – save webpages for later reading
• Evernote – virtual notepad that allows you to keep track of all your stuff (syncs across devices)

Contact Management/Business Social Networks Apps

• LinkedIn - connect with and research all of your business contacts
• Here for Business - looks into LinkedIn contacts and notifies you of nearby business contacts

Miscellaneous Apps

I’d also like to include a couple of business apps in the “honorable mention” category. First is Zena Weist’s recommendation of an app for a different kind of business. That’s right, I’m talking about Charmin’s Sit or Squat app that helps users find the cleanest bathrooms in most major cities.

The second is Tracky, a social collaboration and project management app I learned about from smarty Sarah Evans, who also happens to be their “chief evangelist.” I didn’t include this on the list above because it’s a relatively new technology, but I’ve tried it and think it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on.

For those of you looking for a few additional ideas on good mobile apps that have utility (some business, some not), you can check out my blogger friend David Spark’s post on how he uses his 17 most useful Android applications. As always, if you have suggestions on other apps that you feel are missing from this list, please include in the comments below.

Big thank you to friends Mike Schneider, Rawn Shah, Mike Langford, Andre Archimbaud, Howard Greenstein, Chris Moody, Jim Robinson, Jeremi Karnell, Zena Weist, Sarah Evans, Gordon Montgomery, Eric Swayne, Jeremy Pepper, Susan Beebe, Bhupesh Shah, Stephan Merkens, Jennifer Carrier, Becca Fletcher, Cappy Popp, Allen Silkin and Brad Mays for weighing in with suggestions.

Arguably, the most important new feature to arrive on iOS 6 was something called Passbook, which allows marketers to provide coupons, tickets, loyalty cards and more, all in one place on the iPhone or iPad.

Apple Passbook

For anyone that is interested in a deeper dive, the Passbook Developer kit is a great resource. Assuming that the rest of you are like me and just want the Readers Digest version for marketers, here is the good stuff:

1) The real power behind Passbook, and the most important reason any marketer should consider it, is that for iPhone and iPad users who have upgraded to iOS 6, it is the killer location-based app.

What I mean by that is that if you can encourage a customer to accept a coupon, ticket, loyalty card or pass from you a single time, you have ongoing permission to communicate with them/provide value as long as they have that item in their Passbook.

2) Because Passbook comes pre-loaded on iOS 6 (on the homescreen, to boot), it is impossible not to see. It’s also impossible to delete the app.

And while you can delete items from your Passbook, the user has to flip the item over and then find the delete button in the top left corner. It’s one of the few times that a non-intuitive user interface is helpful to the marketer.

3) While the Passbook functionality integrates nicely with mobile apps, thanks to an easy-to-use API (download the American Airlines, Target or Eventbrite apps for examples), the benefit here is that you can also deliver passes via e-mail or the Web, ensuring that almost anybody can use Passbook.

Speaking of anybody using Passbook, there are several sites that allow one to build their own Passbook functionality — DIY sites like Passdock, and Tello’s PassTools.

4) As mentioned in bullet one, tapping into the location-aware capabilities of Passbook is one of the more powerful aspects of the app. This allows marketers to message customers when they are in store or near a particular location.

Unlike foursquare and other location-based services (LBS), the customer only needs to activate an item once in Passbook to allow for ongoing messaging. Passbook is also date-aware, so it can be triggered on holidays/certain days of the week, as appropriate.

5) And finally, an ability to customize the items within Passbook to include messaging, barcodes, QR codes and other scannable formats allows for the proper connectivity of Passbook with most point of sale (POS) systems.

While Apple Passbook is good now, I can only imagine that it will get better in time. Over the next few months, I will keep readers of Marketing Land updated on the latest and greatest functionality.

Have you seen any great uses of Passbook? If so, please include links in the comments.

Over the last three years, check-in and local search start-up Foursquare has become the face of location-based services. And while the app has gained a lot of traction among those that run in the social crowds, it has only grown to 25 million members.

It sounds absurd for me to be using the words “only” and “25 million” in the same sentence, but, given the growth of image sharing/location-based app, Instagram — zero to 80 million in a little under two years — it feels like Foursquare may not gain the traction is needs to be a viable long-term player. With all that said, I still love Foursquare and regularly recommend it to clients.

Now That We Know What It Isn’t, What Is It?

If the future of location-based marketing isn’t Foursquare, what is it then?

How about Google Mobile? Yes, you heard me correctly. It’s not elegant. There is zero gamification. And to make matters worse, Google is obviously now ignoring iPhone users as witnessed by the cut off image (pictured right) that keeps those on iOS from seeing the full suite of options. But at the end of the day, Google is ubiquitous.

Again, I am not jumping off the Foursquare bandwagon and neither should you. But if you are doing something location-based, it is time to start paying more attention to Google. To that end, here are a few suggestions that can help optimize your campaigns:

• You should make sure that your Google Places information is accurate. This starts by making sure you have claimed your venue(s).
• If you haven’t yet created a Google+ page for your business, do so. We still don’t know exactly what role Google + plays in the search engine’s weighted algorithms, but we do know that +1s (Google’s equivalent of Facebook “likes”) play a role in personalized search, at least.
• If you are doing any search engine marketing (SEM), you can be sure that Google will eventually start offering the equivalent of sponsored updates similar to what Foursquare is currently doing.

One more thing: it’s also smart to keep an eye on Apple’s new Passbook feature that launched with iOS 6 and the iPhone 5. This will be covered in greater detail in a subsequent post, but this could ultimately be a game changer in the location-based marketing space.