Here are some articles which have caught my interest lately.

Blue Dot Special

Google has added a new feature to Google Shopping.  When you search for an item, not only will Google tell you the price ranges found, it will now tell you (indicated by a blue dot) the retailers that have it in-stock, it’s price, distance from you and a link to directions.   This could be trouble for local shopping startups like Milo.com

Mobile

According to a new Nielson report, smartphones will outnumber feature phones by the end of 2011.

Gartner released a new report outlining 10 mobile technologies to watch this year and next.  The two that most caught my attention were:

• By 2011, over 85 percent of handsets shipped globally will include some form of browser.
• By the end of 2011, over 75 percent of devices shipped in mature markets will include a GPS.

This has interesting implications for retailers and location-based services.

Check-in’s and Cheaters

Tired of checking into multiple location based services?  Check.in may have the answer.  It will be interesting to see how the fragmentation around ‘checking in’ will shake out.

Nate Riggs has a good article for retail and restaurant companies about how to leverage your relationship with your location’s Foursquare mayor.

Of course, you may be talking to a cheater.  A new app – Fake Mayor – allows users to present a screen which makes them appear to be mayor.  You should check the Foursquare website to be sure.

Foursquare Introduces New Tools for Business. This is a more in-depth article on the new Foursquare dashboard.   Think Google Analytics for Foursquare data related to my business.

Target Stores to Bring Mobile Coupons Mainstream.

Andreessen Horowitz-backed Burbn bets location is more than a check-in.

Facebook to launch one of its many geolocation projects next month.

SXSWi: Let the geolocation games begin.

OK, I admit I’ve been slack during the last month about my blog posts.   So, to get things jump started, I thought I would at least share links to recent articles I’ve found interesting.   I’m a bit obsessed with location-based services lately and believe that early adopter retail and restaurant companies will be able to leverage these to competitive advantage.

Are You a Foodspotter Yet? Foodspotting is a new application that helps you find good food.

Location Privacy Goes to Washington. Do we have a right to control what location-based advertisers do with our info once they have it? Do we have a right to ensure that law enforcement and government agencies don’t abuse our easily obtained mobile data streams? Are our children safe? What does social science research say about all these changes?

CauseWorld’s Checkin For Charity Gets More Citi Money. CauseWorld’s Checkin for Charity is a mobile app that lets users check in to retail shops for credits that can be donated to charity.

Blippy.com.  Sharing What You’re Buying. Blippy.com is a social networking site that encourages people to see and discuss what their friends and others are buying on services such as iTunes, Netflix, eBay, Amazon, and more.

Gowalla Follows Foursquare’s Lead with Real-Life Incentives. The first content integration will focus on the new series, Food Wars, a new Travel Channel offering where blindfolded participants choose sides to determine “Who Makes The Best Dish In Town.”

Foursquare Confirms Restaurant Dashboard Alpha Testing. 30 hand-picked restaurants are alpha-testing, “an analytics dashboard for Foursquare, where [restaurant] owners can pay to create custom offers and badges.”

Photo by:  dpstyles

Congrats to Jerry Bell and the crew at Atlanta’s ZeeWise on the release of CARS Premier Edition.  

From the release:  ”CARS Premier Edition (CARS PE) is a Web-based software tool designed for use with Intuit Inc.’s QuickBooks® to provide franchisors with insight into their franchisees, or “Zees”, financial and operational performance.

ZeeWise is an Atlanta-based technology company providing innovative business intelligence solutions to franchise organizations.

At the show, Intel and Microsoft announced a new digital display device.  You can read the news release here, but a video may be more helpful.

While I’ll admit this ranked higher because of it’s high-tech nature as opposed to measurable business benefit, it really is a good representation of the things that are starting to happen in digital signage.  At some point digital signage, augmented reality and customer loyalty will start to come together.  This represents a unique look at interactive technologies that will start to differentiate the experience for the customer in-store/restaurant.

I’ll admit to being somewhat enamored with augmented reality technologies and their potential impact on the retail customer experience.   Not only does this potentially impact the in-store customer experience, but I think it’s a powerful way to extend the real shopping experience into virtually unlimited points of distribution.  Fashionista by Rich Relevance, is a great example of this.

I think the impact for retailers down the road gets interesting.  At what point does the in-home shopping experience come close to the in-store shopping experience?  Is there a point where customers will gravitate more to these virtual experiences?  It’s likely a ways out, but I think it puts additional pressure on bricks and mortar retailers to continue to innovate the experience in-store/restaurant, etc.

I’ve also recently written a post on this topic if you are interested in more detail.

Number 3 on the list is the IBM/Cisco Mobile Concierge. This was a concept demonstration of how the in-store shopping experience could be differentiated by leveraging the customers own mobile device.

One thing I learned was that Cisco wireless routers could determine the customers in-store location down to the meter.  This can enable shelf or “micro-location” based services.   Using customer location and other data (e.g., loyalty, purchase history),  the retailer can make offers available that are highly relevant at that moment and at that shelf.

Items scanned by the customer could provide additional information.  There are plenty of services that do this today, but if the retailer is offering this through their own app, there is a greater ability to deliver desired messaging along with reviews and other information.  If an item is not in stock, or the customer simply wants it delivered to their home, this can be seamlessly done from their phone.

Retailers could give customers the ability to find items in-store and, using the in-store location capability, virtually walk the customer to the product.  Additionally, rather than finding the nearest customer service phone, the customer could simply press a button on their in-store app and get help immediately.

Finally, with current smartphone scanning technology (like RedLaser), there is no need for the price-checker.  You can put it in the hands of the customer.

I’m sure there are any number of new services that will be added in the future.  I think the key is for retailers to start thinking about how to leverage the customers own device to provide services which differentiate the in-store experience.

Photo by nedrichards

The Modiv Media Shopper offers value to both the customer and the retailer.  As you will see below, customers can scan products as they shop, see their running total, and are made aware of deals based on their location in the store (and seemingly other criteria).  Checkout is done simply by handing over the scanner (and I would think at least a visual check by the cashier).

The future of in-store technology is increasingly in the hands of the consumer.  We’ve gone from cashier-run checkout to self-checkout, to now checkout with a store-provided mobile device.  In the near future, we will see self checkout with the customers own device along with  relevant promotions and services that you can only get on proprietary devices today.  These applications will be powered by software like RedLaser running on the customers smartphone.

In-store mobile is just getting started.  Innovative retailers will use it to gain preference, differentiation and competitive advantage.

I wasn’t able to find anything on the web about this, so I’m not sure how real it was, but IBM was showing a demonstration of Social Media Data Mining.   The concept was simply to take social media, forum, message board, and other data aggregate it for analysis, sentiment, etc.

The aggregation of social media data for a retailer to monitor their brand will be ’standard equipment’ for large chains in 5 years.   Companies like Radian6, Scout Labs and Visible Technologies are leading the way.

Photo by http://www.freshpeel.com/

Next on the list is the Mac POS.  The one I spent more time with was LightSpeed (there was another called Checkout).  Here’s a video.  The iTunes-like UI is attractive and intuitive which will be important for the next generation of retail employees.   A more intuitive UI can also help new employees get productive faster and with high turnover rates in retail, this can mean a real return.

Because of the price point of Mac hardware and the dearth of peripherals, I don’t see wide-spread adoption.  I can however see a great fit in certain high-end or high-tech retail environments.