Cellphone Tracking Study Shows We’re Creatures of Habit – JOHN SCHWARTZ, NY Times
Research that makes creative use of sensitive location-tracking data from 100,000 cellphones in Europe suggests that most people can be found in one of just a few locations at any time, and that they do not generally go far from home…..people’s wanderings are so subject to routine that by using the patterns of movement that emerged from the research, “we can obtain the likelihood of finding a user in any location.â€
Scientists have long wondered how to measure something as ephemeral as movement. If general rules and algorithms of people’s wanderings could be discerned, they could be used to create computer models for understanding emergency response, urban planning and the spread of disease, say the authors, whose work appears in the new edition of the journal Nature.
The use of cellphones to track people, even anonymously, has implications for privacy that make this “a troubling study,†said Marc Rotenberg, a founder of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. The study, Mr. Rotenberg said, “raises questions about the protection of privacy in physical spaces, when devices make possible the capture of locational data.â€
There are serious ethical issues as well, said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. While researchers are generally free to observe people in public places without getting permission from them or review from institutional ethics boards, Mr. Caplan said, “your cellphone is not something I would consider a public entity.â€
The New iPhone’s New Winner – Om Malik, GigaOm
There are a number of speculative pieces about the coming iPhone. Forbes notes that it might unseat the Nintendo DS in the portable gaming area and Macrumors notes that it is likely to include public transportation on Google Maps.
Om Malik notes with authority that “whether it’s a new 2G model or a super-fast 3G, there is one thing that’s for sure: The new iPhone has Global Positioning System (GPS) built into it“.
Apple’s entrance in the GPS market could have long term affects on the way that GPS is generally delivered and on the sales of stand alone GPS devices. Apple, by integrating it into the iPhone, could change the low end of the market. Automobile companies integrating the device into the dash could attack the higher. In concert these movements could affect the stand alone GPS business significantly over the long haul.
GPS devices and the Nintendo DS are both potential players in the hand held mobile computing market. As a lightweight user of GPS services and games, the single device approach is much more appealing to me and I assume to others as well.
Those Intense iPhone Users
Nielsen Mobile shared some first-quarter 2008 data about how iPhone owners use their phones to communicate with each other.
It’s no surprise that 25- to 34-year-olds make up the largest segment of owners, or a third of all iPhone users. But the over-50 set makes a significant showing, too, as 14.4 percent of iPhone users are aged 55 years old to 64 years old.
Other findings:
The most popular feature for three out of four iPhone users is the iPod function. But slightly more 76 percent send e-mail and 68 percent use the Wi-Fi function.
About 36 percent of iPhone users have a monthly bill more than $100. That is 16 percentage points higher than the average mobile phone user.
37 percent of iPhone users watch video (ten times more than the average cellphone user), 20 percent play online games (nine times more than average) and 33 percent send instant messages (three times more than average).
The iPhone is most popular with personal users, but business employees make a significant showing. About one in four consumers use their phones for business, but pay the bills themselves. Another 15 percent say the company foots the bill.
Martijn Beijk is reporting on his blog, Local Search, that Mapspam on Google is now cropping up in Europe. He notes that I have become infamous in my vendetta against Mapspam and battering Google in the process.
I like to think of it rather as love taps. To me Local offers incredible possibilities and can be of huge service to end users and small business people alike. But to realize that potential it needs to be real. The standard that Google has used to measure web pages for search results has been relevance. The standard for Local to be useful is not just relevance but  truthfulness. That is a high standard indeed.
In my read of the market, Google is the one player that can make this work, but to do so they need to embrace the higher standards needed in Local. If I seem to be battering them, its because I think that they can and hopefully will do better.Â
Update 6/6/08: This spam has been removed. Also on Imnotadoctor.com Maps Guide Jen noted about the similar Earthlink Spam:
This particular case was added through a bulk feed in our Local Business Center. We’re actively working to implement some processes that will prevent these types of spam from displaying in Google Maps.
Cheers,
Jen
A recent posting in the Google Maps for Business Group has led to uncovering of another case of widespread mapspam very similar to the Big Local and Earthlink reported earlier and covered here.
This review of the company says it all: This company is listing my address because I sometimes do work for them. You will get better price and service by going to me directly. David Ringwald‎
The structure and probably the vector of this spam are identical to both EarthLink and Big Local. It doesn’t appear to have been bulk uploaded as their is no indication of business owner control. A number of the listings have a street address but not building number and are represented with the circular indicator instead of the pin.Â
This search on the phrase ComputerAssistant returns 2,495 listings within Maps with listings for every independent contractor that has worked for them previously.
Google has removed the previously reported Mapspam from Earthlink and Big Local. But all of these efforts speak to the idea of showing service area that Carter Maslan spoke of in the interview last week with Greg Sterling last week where he noted:Â We currently don’t allow for service areas, but we recognize that many businesses don’t have physical locations and are working to accommodate those businesses.
If anyone has a suggestion as to how these listings entered maps I would love to hear them.
Google has recently made clear that a business can have only one listing per address and that multiple listings for that business at one address would be considered spam. They have made no clear policy statement in regards to naming the business.
Google appears to tolerate and to some extent endorses the idea that a business should be able to readily change their business name. Yahoo’s policy seems to be that you can change your business name in their local system but if you don’t subscribe to their premium listing it will revert to the business name as indicated by the upstream data providers that they buy their listings from. Is it ok for a business owner to rename their business listing for use in Google Maps?
This “tactic” was first suggested by Chris Silver Smith in Extreme Local Search Optimization Tactics. Of late I have reported a number of Maps listing where listers have creatively “rebranded” a business by changing its business name. “Local Marketers” have used keyword phrases like “Brain Injury Lawyer” or “Boob Job” to replace their business names in an effort to achieve ranking. Mary Bowling recently had an insightful post on Taglines-Why You Need One and how a good tagline in your business name listing not only communicates to your customers but communicates important information to the local search engines as well. Certainly in its current iteration, Maps seems to reward business names that relate closely to the search phrase with higher rankings.
Is changing your business name for the internet a legitimate exercise? Can it ever be? Will it be considered spam or otherwise incur a penalty with Google? The answers are yes, yes and who knows but I think not. (more…)
