Hi James
Like everyone else, I’ve been preoccupied with projects, in my case getting ready to launch my own round of beta testing for Ginovia.com, but I did want to share some suggestions regarding your upcoming website redesign. I never knew how useful that bookmark feature was until I tried remembering the names of people I wanted to approach for future networking, i.e., unless someone’s name is a Jeff Hill or Sam Smith, I’m having a hard time remembering them! Also, for those names of folks I DO remember, (using partial names in the search engine), I have to go out of my way to see if they’ve been active on their blogs. I actually find myself missing reading what’s on everybody’s mind - it made the opening page look like there was always something new to get into. Keep up the good work, I look forward to all the new widgets.

Recently I browsed around about the location-based services (LBS). A more detailed explanation of LBS for mobiles can be found by

http://to.swang.googlepages.com/
http://to.swang.googlepages.com/lbs

Most people believe it would be the next big thing or killer app. Quite a few others have different opinion. e.g.,

http://www.smallsurfaces.com/2008/06/do-we-need-lbs/
http://www.lewebmobile.com/2008/06/do-humans-really-need-location-based.html

Here I can possibly present one opinion from the consumer/end-user perspective, which I have posted in some other places too.

Do we need LBS so badly?

Before I really go to the details. Let me give a review of one simple concept and theory here, which are called “Home Range Concept” and “Traffic Pattern Theory”.

Home Range Concept. It is a concept that can be traced back to a publication in 1943 by W. H. Burt, who constructed maps delineating the spatial extent or outside boundary of an animal’s movement during the course of its everyday activities.

Traffic Pattern Theory. A people’s daily activity pattern is pretty regular, which comprises of several major events, such as school, work, home, shopping.

As I remember, a technical explanation of traffic pattern theory can be found in a report by Stefan Schonfelder, STRC 2001.

http://www.strc.ch/schoenfe.pdf

What happened here is if you are looking at the traffic pattern of a person, saying a full-time employed, 45 years, car, 3-person-household, one child, the regular activity route is so LIMITED. So, does this mean …

That's a pretty keen observation, Elibom. Especially with gas prices severly limiting people's ability and willingness to step out of their immediate sphere of influence, it kinda takes the fun out of finding new places to dine. Of course, the target audience is more in the twenty something age group, which is more adventuresome, but more limited in discretionary spending. I think Zoodango would do well in including and tracking local street scene clubs, especially the type that float from location to location.

Elibom and Paul,

Love the discussion. Interesting theories on the traffic pattern. It will be very interesting to watch the LBS space. We have a few ideas where we'll allow users to plot their patterns against their friends. Maybe certain demographics like a 45 year old will have very similar patterns.

Like the thoughts and comments!