

Why I think iBeacons will flop - michaelmcmillan

I can&#x27;t recall any advertisement regarding Apples new iBeacon technology (in short: a bluetooth device that can be traced). If you think about it, it kind of makes sense that there has been little or no advertisement at all: The iBeacon is not a consumer product. It&#x27;s a product for businesses, to track its customers.<p>For a consumer to actually want to use an iBeacon it would have to offer something of value. As I currently see it: It does not. I doubt that targeted ads is a good enough selling point to make people want to use them. Hopefully it has the completely opposite effect.<p>However, a handful of startups has newly arised that claim to utilize this technology in a way that will revolutionize the way offline and online presence works. Still unsure of what this exactly entales, I would argue its another step in the direction of less control of privacy.<p>My point is that iBeacons will most likely flop. Simply because it&#x27;s not something people want. It&#x27;s something businesses want. In a way it can be compared to what PG would describe as a &quot;sitcom startup idea&quot;. It sounds clever, but the execution of this concept will fail due to the lack of actual demand for the consumers.<p>I am sharing what I think, I&#x27;d love for anyone to pitch in on what they think.
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WojtekB
Hey there,

First, a full disclosure: I'm a Community Evangelist at Estimote, a beacon
startup.

Now, to the point: I believe saying that iBeacon is about tracking customers
and targeted ads is missing the point. iBeacon is about providing apps with
microlocation context. Of course you can use it to deliver ads through your
apps or to track users, but if there's no value for the users, why would they
install the app in the first place?

iBeacon is not privacy violator or value adder by itself. It's a tool
developers can utilize, just like GPS data, or Google/Apple Maps, or any kind
of API, to enable their apps with new funcionalities. Beacons will most likely
serve as kind of a 'web cookies for the physical world' because of their
contextual marketing potential, but this doesn't mean beacon-enabled apps will
not hold any value for the end user. There already are businesses building
pretty cool solutions on top of iBeacon, ranging from dining apps (Downtown,
Cover, Tab), smart office platforms (Robin), museum apps (Canadian Museum of
Nature, Brooklyn Museum), to dating apps (Blinq). We wrote about some of the
examples we find pretty awesome:
[http://blog.estimote.com/post/108266442445/ibeacon-
fueling-s...](http://blog.estimote.com/post/108266442445/ibeacon-fueling-
startups-growth)

It's all about the experience you deliver. Beacons can be used to deliver tons
of value (frictionless mobile payments, location aware audioguides, home
automation). But at the end of the day, iBeacon is just a protocol for
broadcasting a string of numbers over Bluetooth Smart. It's up for beacon
platforms and vendors to make unlocking this value as easy as possible, and
for developers to take advantage of that and create cool, useful solutions.
Some time ago with a fellow Evangelist from Estimote we've written a post
about considering UX in beacon-enabled apps. I think it's relevant to this
thread: [http://blog.estimote.com/post/101427444795/ux-for-the-
real-w...](http://blog.estimote.com/post/101427444795/ux-for-the-real-world-
how-should-you-think-about)

Cheers.

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michaelmcmillan
Thanks for taking the time to reply! :)

'Web cookies for the physical world' sounds exactly like what I depicted - and
I guess we all know what the impact of web cookies have on privacy [1].

The reason I wrote this post to begin with was the lack of advertising
iBeacons generally have had. This could however be caused by me living in
Norway and not having the same exposure for new technology as someone in (for
instance) SF has.

Although I admit that the usage examples you present are valid, I still can't
help but think that if something is free then I am most likely the product. To
expand on this: If I was given an iBeacon at a shopping mall I would
immediately suspect that the data which was being generated to improve my
'shopping experience' would mostly benefit the shopping mall.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie#Tracking](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie#Tracking)

~~~
WojtekB
You keep referring to only a single use case of iBeacon - retail & shopping.
This is the biggest market for beacons and retailers surely will use beacons
to gather data. But so does Amazon, and I'd say that more people like Amazon
because of offering products they're likely to buy, than hate them because
they store their shopping history.

Anyway, there are lots of other uses of beacons. In other cases, no one claims
you're getting anything for free. When it comes to dining apps: if they
deliver great experience, restaurants will be more likely to use them to keep
more clients coming. If Robin's smart office software works well, you will pay
them to use it, because they're a SaaS company. If a museum's app makes an
exhibition much more entertaining, you'll come back to see the next one. There
is no 'hidden fee' anywhere: they use your location data to improve their
services. Surely there will be violators, who want to take advantage of this
data without offering value in return, but iBeacon is opt-in by design: you
need to download the app and give it permission to access your location.
What's the chance you will keep using an app that isn't useful and violates
your privacy?

Basically, it's a bit like with Uber: yeah, you do share your location. And
thanks to that, Uber leverages users' data to adjust fare rates and number of
contractors, optimizing their business. But your benefit is clear - you get a
great service, much better than huge majority of taxi corporations.

As for advertising: from what I've seen, beacon vendors are pretty visible in
AdSense and do a ton of retargeting. We do at Estimote, I've also seen banners
from Radius Networks, Kontakt.io, Urban Airship, and at least a couple of
others. But I've seen their pages a bajilion times, so that makes me a good
target for the ads :) There was also a lot of press about beacons in the last
few months, especially with Facebook and Groupon entering the space with their
pilots.

Cheers.

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jp555
iBeacons are like GPS, just dumb timers pingining a number over radio. You
could have said the same thing about GPS in the early days.

How about a museum app that guides you to the nearest bathroom or the next
exhibit you want to see? Or your watch could buzz you towards your airport
departure gate or seat without ever needing a glance.

Even retail there are many opportunities that aren't advertising; how about
helping you find 32" waist jeans in a pile of them? The tech is sub-centimetre
accurate. How about a grocer partering with recipes.com and guiding you aroud
to ingredients you need?

Then we could use it to guide autonomous devices indoors ... Maybe you play
games in your car while a robot grocery cart shops for you, or maybe have it
ready for pickup or drone delivery?

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ashleyp
Interesting point. However as a consumer/developer I can think of lots of fun
things to do with beacons that have nothing to do with businesses =). There
are far more things you can do with them then simply targeting ads.

