Identifying people, objects and data by their geographical location has always been crucial, though it has provided limited commercial value. However, the rapid evolution and commoditisation of the communication services technologies has led the way to the development of this activity as a business opportunity. One way to identify the data and objects by their physical location is by geotagging them - the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as photographs, video, websites, RDF or RSS feeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. 

Geotagging has emerged as a new market opportunity within the rapidly growing LBS and UGC markets. As the LBS market grows, the number of geotagging applications and platforms being launched around its ecosystem is increasing. The Location-Based Services and Location- Based Advertising markets have grown in importance over past few years. Evidence of this growth lies in sectoral M & A activity, where almost all the big players i.e. Google, Nokia, Microsoft and Yahoo! have consolidated their positions quickly, by adding new companies and products to their portfolios. Also, a number of new start-ups have surfaced and are adding to the development of an LBS ecosystem. 

GPS is increasingly becoming the technology of choice for mobile LBS. Once a clear geotagging technology emerges that works with all GPS mapping applications,  is user-friendly and available to all, geotagging will take off. The growth of GPS in mobile is key to the future of geotagging. The spread of GPS, coupled with the huge improvements in the quality of cameras on handsets, mean that many users have now bought into device convergence - their phone is also their digital camera, and their MP3 player, and much more besides. The astronomical success of the iPhone is testament to this. 

Mobile mapping and geotagging has great potential due to the relationship between a mobile subscriber and their handset, where the mobile device is often with the end-user for most of their waking time. With mobile penetration reaching 100% in many developed markets, the mobile camera phone will soon be in virtually everyone's pocket. 

Social networking and user generated content forms another market upon which geotagging is dependent. The importance of online and mobile communities has grown rapidly throughout the world - social networking is the now 4th largest sector on the Internet, and their user-landscape has gradually changed to a more 'broader and older' audience. Alongside other types of multimedia content, millions of images are uploaded onto these sites by their users everyday, creating opportunities for the development of a whole range of applications by third-party vendors. Already, there are many applications for geotagging the content by location on general sites i.e. Facebook and MySpace and photo-centric sites like Flicker. 

This exclusive management report will tell you the following:

·    Who are the main players in the mobile geotagging and what are they doing?

·    What different forms of geotagging are available and expected to appear in the future?

·    Why is geotagging so important to mobile?

·    When will geotagging start to make traction in the market? When will it become a mass market poposition?

·    How successful will it be?

·    What is current landscape of the LBS and LBA markets, the key players, and future trends and prospects

·    How are online and mobile social networks, and UGC growing

·    Factors and drivers expected to influence future growth in the mobile geotagging market, and

·    Recommends for different industry players

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

E1 Development of location specific information as a commercial opportunity

E2 Mobile geotagging - a new market opportunity within LBS and UGC markets

E3 Mobile Geotagging and location aware services & advertising

            Figure E1: The location-aware market in growth-phase

E4 The significance of social networking and UGC for mobile geotagging

E5 What does the future hold for mobile geotagging?

            Figure E2: Mergers & Acquisitions in LBS and navigational services markets, 1999-2007

E6 Scope of this report - an outline of each chapter

1. An overview of Geotagging market

1.1 Proliferation of location specific information

            1.1.1 The need to tag the information - how does it work?

            1.1.2 The commercial importance of tagging of locations, objects and data

1.2. Geotagging

            1.2.1 What is Geotagging?

            1.2.2 Use and benefits of Geotags

                        1.2.2.1 Labelling, search and finding

                                    Figure 1.1: Geotagged photos with POIs

                        1.2.2.2 Advertising

                        Figure 1.2: Penetration of SMS and LBS usage by user profile

            1.2.3 Geotagging in photography

                        1.2.3.1 Mapping photographs

                        1.2.3.2 Cameras with built-in GPS

                        1.2.3.3 Obstacles to development

1.3 Methods of geotagging photographic content

            1.3.1 Automatic method - using a connected GPS

                        1.3.1.1 Automatic method - problems with location accuracy

                        Figure 1.3: Geographical issues with geocoding - photograph

            1.3.2 Synchronising with a separate GPS

            1.3.3 Manual geotagging

1.4. Different approaches to geographical identification of metadata to various media

            1.4.1. Auto-geotagging

                        1.4.1.1 Location acquisition

                        1.4.1.2 Real time media transfer

                        1.4.1.3 Online mapping

                        1.4.1.4 Auto-geotagging and privacy concerns

            1.4.2. Geocoding

                        1.4.2.1 Reverse geocoding

                        1.4.2.2 Geocoding - address interpolation

                        1.4.2.3 Privacy concerns in geocoding and reverse geocoding

                        1.4.2.4 Geographic information system (GIS)

                        1.4.2.5 Geolocation

                        1.4.2.6 Georeference

                        1.4.2.7 GeoRSS

                        1.4.2.8 GPS

                                    14.2.8.1 Galileo - Europe's GPS

                                                Figure 1.4: The $4.5bn Galileo navigation system expected to be ready by 2011/2012

                                    1.4.2.8.2 GPS in wireless

                                    1.4.2.8.3 Geotagging with GPS

                                                1.4.2.8.3.1 Geotagging with GPS - the capture and process

                                                            Table 1.5: GPS error sources

                        1.4.2.9 Mobile blog

                        1.4.2.10 Supranet

                        1.4.2.11 Mobile tagging

                        1.4.2.12 Geoblogging

1.5 Geotagging techniques

            1.5.1 GPS format

1.6 Geotagging standards in electronic file formats

            1.6.1 JPEG Photos

            1.6.2 HTML pages

                        1.6.2.1 ICBM method

                        1.6.2.2 RDF and RSS feeds

                        1.6.2.3 Microformat

                        1.6.2.4 Wikipedia

1.7. Geotagging in tag-based systems 

2 Mobile Geotagging - market opportunity and driving factors

2.1 Access of Internet on mobile phone

            Figure 2.1 Mobile internet users by 2014

2.2 Mobile phone as a camera

            Figure 2.2: Japan survey - "How often do you use your video camera?"

            2.2.1 Trend in growth of high resolution cameras

            2.2.2 Will high resolution camera phones change the game for social networks?

            Figure 2.3: Number of camera phones in market 2008 - 2014

2.3 Mobile Geotagging market opportunity - the current landscape

2.4 Market consolidation to offer increased opportunities for geotagging

            Table 2.1: Number of companies acquired and merged between 1999-2008

            2.4.1 Google will continue to compliment growth in opportunities in diversification

                        2.4.1.1 Google's market strategy

2.5 Market opportunity for white-label applications developers

2.6 Market drivers to LBS and opportunities for geotagging

            2.6.1 Location as a mobile tool

            2.6.2 LBS to drive mobile content

                        Figure 2.4: Types of mobile avertising & marketing

2.7 Mapping key to Geotagging

2.8 Mobile social networks to grow in importance for geotagged content

2.9 Consumers to buy into device convergence 

3 Geotagging and advertising

3.1 Success of contextually relevant advertising and marketing

3.2 LBS offering: market consolidation and competitive landscape

            Table 3.1: Number of start-ups in LBS and geotagging markets

            3.2.1 Commoditisation of GPS

3.3 LBS market opportunity

            3.3.1 Potential for location-aware applications and Geotagging

            3.3.2 Key markets for LBS application

            3.3.3 Potential for LBS on mobile devices

3.4 How are LBS offered?

            3.4.1 Radiolocation through base stations

                        Figure 3.1: Mobile phone triangulation

            3.4.2 Building successful LBS applications on GPS: the key areas

                        3.4.2.1 Mapping information

                        Figure 3.2: Location based services value chain

                        3.4.2.2 Navigation services

                        3.4.2.3 Point of interest information

                        3.4.2.4 User-generated content

                        3.4.2.5 Advertising

            3.4.3 Options on adding context to applications

                        3.4.3.1 Using an on-device, third-party map data and visualization application

                        3.4.3.2 Using a web-based GIS service

                        3.4.3.3 Embedding a third-party GIS engine

                        Figure 3.3: Atlas mobile search

3.5 Mobile search

            3.5.1 Search is vital to mobile advertising

            3.5.2 US mobile search ad revenues

            3.5.3 Mobile search: the current market status

                        Figure 3.4: Top search engines by marke share (%)

            3.5.4 Competitive landscape of mobile search

            3.5.5 Google leads the mobile search market

                        Figure 3.5: Percentage of US searches among leading search engine providers Feb-2008-2009

            3.5.6 The future of mobile search

                        Figure 3.6: US mobile search demography (%) Feb 2008-2009

                        3.5.6.1 Localisation the key to mobile search future

            3.5.7 Challenges confronting mobile search

3.6 Location-based advertising

            3.6.1 Current market for mobile LBA

            3.6.2  Mobile web usage to spur growth in mobile ad sector

            3.6.3 Future of Mobile LBA

                        Figure 3.7: Cisco projects mobile data traffic will increase 66X from 2008 to 2013

            3.6.4 LBA to get boost from LBS

            3.6.5 LBA driving factors and barriers

                        3.6.5.1 The importance of search to LBA

                        3.6.5.2 Mobile social networking and LBA

                        3.6.5.3 Barriers to LBA success

            3.6.6 Mobile LBA technologies 

4 Geotagging and social networking

4.1 Social networking market trends

            4.1.1 Growth in online communities

            4.1.2 Social networks the 4th largest sector on Internet

                        Figure 4.1: Mobile communities 4th largest sector on Internet

            4.1.3   Users now spend more time on social networking

                        Figure 4.2: Time spent by consumers on social networks globally

            4.1.4 The change in social networks user landscape: a shift towards 'broader and older' audience

                        Figure 4.3: Changing social networks user landscape to 'broader & older' audience

            4.1.5 Growth in social networks revenues: How MySpace and Facebook have expanded

4.2 Social networking on mobile phones

            4.2.1 Mobile social networks

                        Figure 4.4: Mobile communities users as % of total mobile subscribers, 2009-2014

            4.2.2 Worldwide popularity of mobile communities

                        Figure.4.5: Top 10 websites globally by reach, April-May 2009

4.3 Mobile social networking and UGC

            4.3.1 The importance of instant content

            4.3.2 Content breeds content

4.4 Geotagging on social networks

            4.4.1 The importance of geotagging in social networking

            4.4.2 Geosocial networks - the location-specific networking

            4.4.3 Geotagging online content

            4.4.4 Building applications with geotagged content

4.5 Generating revenue through mobile social networks

4.6 Barriers to mobile communities

4.7 Social networking - the current market landscape

            4.7.1 GeoSentric's GyPSii

                        Figure 4.6: GyPSii geo-location technology

            4.7.2 Rixome

            4.7.3 Geoblogging - Nokia's Lifeblog

                        Table 4.1: Nokia Lifeblog phone

4.8 Geotagging of news and Citizen Journalism

            4.8.1 How it works

            4.8.2 Hyperlocal news

            4.8.3 newsBreakr

            4.8.4 Google News Timeline

                        Figure 4.7: Google News Map visualises online news popularity 

5 The current market landscape of digital mapping and navigational services market

5.1 The key players

            Table 5.1. The online mapping market landscape

5.2 Google will continue to consolidate its lead position

            Table 5.2: Portfolio of Google's digital mapping & navigational services

            5.2.1 Google and digital mapping

            5.2.2 Google Maps for developers

            5.2.3 Google maps for mobile phones

            5.2.4 Google and Picasa

                        Figure 5.1: Google top-10 properities

            5.2.5 Google and Wikipedia

            5.2.6 Google Latitude

5.3 Microsoft

            5.3.1 Microsoft and Multimap

5.4 Yahoo!

            5.4.1 Yahoo and Flickr

            5.4.2 Yahoo and Zonetag

5.5 Nokia

            5.5.1 The evolution of geotagging on Nokia Nseries devices

            5.5.2 Nokia and Navtaq

5.6 Tele Atlas

5.7 TomTom

5.8 Geotate and u-Blox

5.9 Locr

5.10 Loki from Skyhook

5.11 Mappr

5.12 i-gotU

5.13 Woophy 

6 Market developments

6.1 Main happenings in geotagging sector

6.2 Facebook backs down on privacy policy, to develop new terms

6.3 Cisco adds social networking to its forte

6.4 Sony's new camcorder with GPS geotagging

6.5 HTC Touch Cruise with new geotagging application

6.6 BlackBerry OS 5.0 update with geotagging application

6.7 Locr's new location-enabled travel photo book

            Figure 6.1. Locr's new travel photo book

6.8 iPhoto update helps show merits of geotagging

6.9 Twitter reinstates SMS services to UK mobile users

6.10 LG new Viewty includes geotagging capabilities

6.11 New geotagging method draws on Flickr photos.

6.12 Google lunches Flu Trends application

6.12 Geotagging for Nikon dSLRs

6.13 Google launches new applications with the Latitude service

            Figure 6.2: Google's Latitude service, how it works

6.14 Nokia updates Ovi Maps to enable "Social Location" 

7 Analysis and forecast

7.1 Growth in LBS

7.2 Possible LBS markets: an outline

7.3 Main drivers towards future growth in LBS

7.4 LBS growth: by revenue

7.5 LBS growth by subscribers

7.6 GPS in mobile handsets

7.7 The growth of geotagging on the net

7.8 Security concerns in LBS

            7.8.1 Safety and security as market drivers

            7.8.2 Spoofing the location finder in Apple's iPhone

            7.8.3 Controversy in UK over Google's Street View

7.9 The importance of user privacy 

8 Conclusion and recommendations

8.1 Mobile LBS grow in importance

8.2 How will geotagging be monetised? - Issues and challenges

8.3 Device convergence will be significant to geotagging

8.4 Who is offering a geotagging system?

8.5 Consideration to data costs vital to all markets, including geotagging

8.6 Ad-funded content and data costs

8.7 Technology unification

8.8 Recommendations

            8.8.1 For network operators

            8.8.2 For handset manufacturers

            8.8.3 For developers

            8.8.4 For advertisers