In parallel with this work to cajole London's agencies to open up their data for developers I have been working with Hanif Rahemtulla at City to think through the roots and motivation of the open data movement. It seems reasonably clear that there are a multiplicity of drivers including concepts of freedom, desire for free markets, commitment to public commons, campaigns for social progress and limits to corporate power amongst others. We are working on this with a view to research proposals and publication.

As a first step we thought that it was desirable to explore the views of developers through a questionnaire survey to ensure we scope our study comprehensively enough. The question was... how do we reach this unstructured and self-organising community? We are fortunate that WhereCamp.eu was organised this month, an event that would bring together many developers in the geospatial/ mobile/ open data communities. We circulated the questionnaire at the conference and we are now receiving replies, for which we thank participants. We now ask for as many other participants to send us back their questionnaire in the stamped addressed envelope we gave out for this purpose! Email me at raper@soi.city.ac.uk if you would like a replacement survey form.

When we have received back the questionnaires we will aggregate the data and publish it here. Well, you couldn't do otherwise with an open data survey...

Jonathan Raper/ Hanif Rahemtulla

It is significant because policies towards information are changing after a long period of stability dating back to the 1980s. During this period the principle governing the availability of information collected by the government was dominated by a principle that Mrs Thatcher first articulated i.e. 'user pays'. This principle had its origins in a period of recession and public spending restraint: Mrs Thatcher's argument was that general taxation should not pay for a specific government service of use to an individual or company. If they wanted it... they should pay for it. Successive governments have held fast to this policy as to change it meant spending increases. During the last decade a whole infrastructure has built up around this policy, so for example we now have the shareholder executive looking after the government's interest in largely autonomous agencies that are charging citizens for various government services. So, when there are agencies like the Ordnance Survey (OS) who are covering their costs by charging citizens and businesses for services, why should government change anything?

The reason that we are now seeing major shifts in policy is that government has been hit by a perfect storm, with waves of change coming from different directions, which together is compelling change.

The first wave comes from the so-called "Digital Transition" in which most forms of information and entertainment are being digitised. These new digital goods have different economic properties, notably, they have low marginal costs of distribution after the first copy. In commercial markets producers have sought ways of spreading the costs of this first copy over all subsequent purchasers so that they recover the costs and make a profit by using copyright and copy protection technology, with only limited success. However, when the government collects information for a core public duty, taxation does and should pay for the first copy of the information. After that, if government charges for the collected information, we must call it a tax when the marginal costs of distribution are low or zero. Hence the longstanding opposition to the 'user pays' funding model for the Ordnance Survey as one part of government needs to pay another part for the use of mapping data, and citizens and businesses need to pay commercial rates even though government needs maps to discharge its public duties. The Royal Mail also needs postcodes to undertake mail delivery logistics, therefore, the sale of postcode information is a tax. There is now a broad alliance of opposition to this model led by the Guardian's Free Our Data campaign on the grounds that it is irrational, unfair and ineffective. This campaign believes that opening up data will lead to new commercial activity, which will be taxed, thus bringing benefit back to government and society.

The second wave of change comes from the mobile internet revolution that has swept through communications over the last decade and created a hyperconnected society in which instant, anywhere access to information is the norm. With the huge success of smartphones and app stores people now have the platform in their hand for the delivery of information services that would have been impossible only a few years ago. This new reality has changed expectations amongst the public... so, for example, people now expect to be able check train times in real time on their mobile device. Here too there have been disputes: when an authority like National Rail Enquiries (NRE) (private, but publically funded) can offer a feed of train schedule and running information, who should have access to this? A complaint to the Office of Rail Regulation that NRE's decision to licence the data to just one provider in 2009 led to the recommendation that a code of practice be established for the licensing of this information. Lying in the background, however, is the bigger question of why when billions are spent on railways by the public they should have to buy back information about publicly funded services at all. This is very complex as the information is free on the mobile web... but the question still remains: should a publicly funded authority be able to determine which business models for the distribution of public information are to be acceptable? In the new future I think the public will expect diversity and choice, and therefore that the data should be openly available for developers in public and voluntary sectors to reuse and innovate.

The third wave comes from the open source movement whose beliefs derive ultimately from principles of freedom, self help and an opposition to monopoly. The opendata movement believes that government should collect, structure and validate its information and then put it on a server in raw form for anyone to use. This unleashes innovation and engagement with the information being analysed and presented in new ways. OpenStreetMap (OSM) are the classic expression of this wave of change: now with over 200,000 members worldwide OSM have remapped developed countries where the cost of the GPS technology to do it has fallen dramatically recently. In the developing world OSM have been able to engage in community partnerships like that in Kibera, Kenya to map previously poorly mapped locations. OSM's scale has now led to major national scale donations of mapping information e.g. in Austria, which will now be maintained by open source groups. The open source movement has thrown down the gauntlet to governments on data by saying effectively... if you don't gather the data then we will do it ourselves using crowdsourcing techniques. The fact that this puts pressure on existing government 'user pays' charging regimes is another wave of change.

So, todays London DataStore announcements by the GLA and last months "Smarter Government" initiative by the Cabinet Office (with the leadership of Sir Tim Berners-Lee) have been driven by these waves of change. And though many of us have been saying this for years, we must welcome the commitment of current administrations to release this data, as now the arguments are compelling. However, this is only the beginning of the process: we have to unwind some of the commercial partnerships government has in place to manage its information to ensure that it is released without conditions; we have to remove provisions like limitations on 'derived data' products when new opendata services want to use government data as a framework; we must look for ways to ensure that the innovations to be created are offered to all with full accessibility; and we must ensure that the legitimate privacy expectations of the citizen are not compromised by information releases.

So today is a good day. A very good day. But tomorrow we must get back to work to make this promised future happen.

Office for National Statistics

Geodemographics Knowledge Base

data.gov.uk (requires registration)

What do they know? (Data freed via Freedom of Information requests)

ITO World

Safer Streets from Direct.gov

BBC Openair

London datastore from the GLA

London feeds demo

Masterclass on Tuesday 16th June 2009, City University London

Content

This one-day Masterclass will offer participants a comprehensive vision of where location-based services, personal navigation devices and mobile GIS are headed in the 2-5 year time frame. Still expanding rapidly despite the Credit Crunch, the addition of geopositioning hardware and software to many mobile devices has created a mass market platform offering many new opportunities for geo-developers. The change from the era of high data costs, slow GPS and installable applications on mobiles to flat data tariffs, location APIs and 'app' stores for seamless installation will have profound implications for data providers, developers and end users. These changes are already encouraging data providers to release their data as geo-web feeds, and the arrival of location-enhanced browsers like Opera on mobile will make it easier and cheaper to bring services using geodata to the market.

This Masterclass will look at the drivers behind this change and the key events on the evolutionary timeline for location technologies. It will cover the positioning, geo-content and business models for location technologies, and will include a practical session where participants can build their own location-sensitive mashup. It will also cover the new generation of devices, distribution mechanisms and the impact of open source software on location technologies. The Masterclass will bring the latest news from industry and research around the world together in one accessible briefing.

Advantages of participation

At the end of the Masterclass, in addition to the course notes, the take-away advantages for attendees will include:

Who should attend?

The Masterclasses are designed as accessible but practical briefings for those with positions focussed on, or exposed to developments in location technologies, for example, researchers, designers, marketeers, managers and analysts in either the private, public or voluntary sector. The Masterclasses will be eligible for continuing professional development credit.

Who teaches the courses?

These one-day courses are led by internationally known researchers Professor Jonathan Raper and Dr David Mountain. Jonathan and David are the founders of Location Based Services Research (LBSR) at City University and they also run Placr Ltd. a location technology startup company. The course will be a mixture of lectures, demonstrations and Q&A sessions and will offer all participants hands on experience with the technology. Participants will receive digital copies of the course materials.

Pricing and registration

£295 per person with lunch and materials.Places on the Masterclasses can be booked through Mark Firman on 020 7040 8435 or via email on mfirman@soi.city.ac.uk. Enquiries about the Masterclass can be made to Professor Jonathan Raper on 020 7040 8415 or by email to raper@soi.city.ac.uk.

Programme

09.30 – 10.00 Arrival and registration

10.00 – 10.15 Welcome and introduction

10.15 – 11.30 Session 1: Positioning

[How positioning technologies work, and a comparison of their pros and cons]

11.30 – 11.45 Break

11.45 – 13.00 Session 2: Geo-content

[Why new forms of geo-content are driving the development of location-sensitive applications]

13.00 – 13.45 Lunch

13.45 – 15.00 Session 3: Building geo-applications

[Guided practical session on mashing up web-based geotools to build a location aware application]

15.00 – 15.15 Break

15.15 – 16.30 Session 4: Business models

[How location-sensitive applications can be delivered, funded and marketed]

16.30 – 16.45 Q&A

April 24th- May 1st 2009

Content

This one week GIS field skills course is a part of the Geographic Information Technologies and Applications module taught by the giCentre to Masters level students. It is a residential field course based at Coniston in the English Lake District National Park which emphasises the development of practical GIS skills by participants. The learning is structured around the following three projects:

Project 1: Rural and village geodemographics (led by Jonathan Raper)

Relates digital geodemographic profiles to local field observations using mobile GIS tools based on ESRI ArcPad GIS (Coniston village area).

Project 2: Assessment of terrain model accuracy and fidelity (led by David Mountain)

Comparison of terrain models from various sources and scales with field observations and measurements. Exploration of scale dependencies and limitations of terrain model characterisation using Landserf GIS (Coniston fells area).

Project 3: Remote Sensing, groundtruthing and environmental modelling (led by Jason Dykes)

Processing of remotely sensed images, assessment of landcover classification quality and environmental modelling for land resources assessment using PixelEx remote sensing software (Coniston fells area).

Each project is concluded with a presentation to lecturers and other students showing the results of the fieldwork with detailed discussion and feedback on the outcomes.

Advantages of participation

At the end of the Masterclass, the take-away advantages for attendees will include:

Who should attend?

There is space on this field course for 5 additional participants who are looking to enhance their GIS skills and to develop their understanding of geographic information science methods in practice. It is suitable for those with a basic understanding of GIS to develop their skills with hands-on experience and intensive tuition from the teaching staff. The Masterclasses will be eligible for continuing professional development credit, though the work will not be assessed unless participants want to opt in to module study by registering for the full module. It will be possible to upgrade attendance on the field course to module study by completion of additional self-study practical GIS tasks at extra cost, to be completed by May 11th 2009. Registered module students have access to City University labs, software and staff to complete this work, including the module learning materials on the City Virtual Learning Environment 'CitySpace', which is accessible on and off-site.

Who teaches the courses?

These one-day courses are led by giCentre staff Professor Jonathan Raper, Dr David Mountain and Dr Jason Dykes. The field course will be a mixture of lectures, demonstrations, practical work and seminars and will offer all participants hands-on experience with GIS. Participants will receive digital and paper copies of the course materials.

Pricing and registration

£395 per person half board for the field course. Upgrade to module study for an extra £100 for a total of £495.

Places on the Masterclasses can be booked through Mark Firman on 020 7040 8435 or via email on mfirman@soi.city.ac.uk.

Enquiries about the Masterclass can be made to Professor Jonathan Raper on 020 7040 8415 or by email to raper@soi.city.ac.uk.

Relatively few of the early commercial LBS were data-rich, with location-based social networking, mobile search and mobile gaming being examples of services that generated their own data. Those LBS that were based on data were not new services, but mobilisations of existing applications, notably navigation systems like satnav. There have been some distinguished exceptions to this rule like Viewranger, Zillow and Camineo (full disclosure: City University is a shareholder in Camineo). However, these innovative services have all had to build their own platforms like Where and Spime have done in order to launch services with data.

However, new data rich LBS are now emerging rapidly due to the availability of new location-enhanced platforms like Android and iPhone, and upgrades to the established mobile platforms like the forthcoming Windows Mobile Silverlight platform with a new location interface. We are also seeing new location-enhanced browsers like Mozilla's Fennec for mobile which will be able to read device location and access web feeds based on GeoRSS and mapping services like Google Maps.

The reason that geoweb feeds will become a major driver for LBS growth is because it will lower the bar for the syndication of geospatial content, and there are a huge number of potential providers who are ready to open access to their data in this way if the audience shows an appetite for the content. We can expect to see newspapers, transport providers and government agencies all developing location-based access to their content in this way: see London Transport's web feeds, for example. As we see geoweb feeds launched by major organisations we are likely to see 'network-effect growth', where the low cost of setting up the feeds and easy access through the mobile browser means both supply and demand grow at compound rates. So: just when you think LBS is growing as fast as it can do and the credit crunch might slow it down, the latent potential of data previously too expensive to mobilise might well emerge to power even faster growth.

Jonathan Raper

I joined up through my Google account and followed myself as Google tracked me in real time across London. A work colleague texted me with incredulity as he watched me move across the map.

So. It works (kind of, see below), it's fun and it fits with the strategy to enhance Google Maps, but is it an advance for those already using tracker services like Loopt or Brightkite? In short, no. What Google have done is to enhance their platform with an additional feature as John Spinney has pointed out. Google's brand will ensure that it gets distribution and use, and this will change the landscape for LBS in various subtle ways.

Let's look closer at what Latitude does and how it performs. Latitude uses the existing Google Maps for Mobile 'My Location' feature in the Google Gears API which uses Google's growing database of cellID locations to define your location using trilateration. This kind of positioning is accurate to 100m in certain city centre locations, and to 500-1000m in the suburbs, and has been around for almost a decade. As I followed myself using Latitude on my train journey home, at first in central London I was snapped accurately to the closely spaced stations, then as we moved into the suburbs my location jumped from place to place on both sides of the railway track, many of which I have never been to in my life.

As my phone has GPS, I can switch on GPS and see 'My Location' updated to the nearest few metres... and I saw Latitude map my GPS track as I walked home from the railway station. 'My Location' also uses WiFi positioning when the device can detect WiFi hotspots whose locations have been mapped by Google or its partners. Hence, when I switched off GPS and switched on my phone's WiFi radio, Latitude quickly zoomed in on my house: I assume my home hotspot has been mapped.

So, although Latitude has now brought positioning to a mass market, the underlying accuracy fundamentals have not been altered... and you still don't know what kind of positioning you are getting or how it is performing. So, I look at Andrew Grill's Latitude location as I write this and I see his marker sitting on a road in West London. Is this a cellID estimate that is bouncing around depending on the room in the house he is in (and different cell base stations are serving his mobile device), or is it a wifi position or a sample from a GPS track? Over time by looking at the position you can start to guess which method is being used, but without more information from Google it it is hard to know how the positioning is performing. This problem of positioning quality for LBS is something that Placr is working on in the EU funded MetaPos project (see my recent presentation at GRACE).

This means that although Latitude 'works', the lack of positional quality information means that LBS developers and advertisers cannot yet bank on the positional streams to offer services. It also means that (by accident) Latitude doesn't do a very good job of invading your privacy, even assuming you have got consent to track someone...

Jonathan

So... I'm back with a thought... the one in the title. What do I mean? Well, for some years we have seen the mobile phone as a potential 'universal information appliance'... ever since it was apparent that mobile devices could ship data (around 2000?). Mobiles were small, cheap-ish, easy to use (kind of) and got universal distribution quickly, and so it was only a matter of time before they were put to use as information tools. The reality has been more complex.

What has been fascinating is the way that the really successful applications on mobile have developed as 'twists' on the originally engineered technology. Think of SMS as the classic example... another would be the use of accelerometers intended to change screen aspect, now being used for gaming.

So what are these 'twists' in development and how do they come about? I think they emerge at a messy interface between those who can program and create applications... and those who understand what will sell and how it can pay for itself. Either someone in marketing has to have the 'reach' in tech to define a crazy idea and make it happen, or someone in tech has to have enough funding savvy to get an 'insanely great' tool out there. Ideally, someone holds the ring and brokers these things... but it happens all too infrequently.

This problem is a wider one in innovation, but it is acute in mobile because of the hold that engineers in mobile networks have over the technologies that get distribution. Voice transmission dominates mobile operator revenues and so shifting the balance of capital expenditure and network bandwidth away from voice is too great a risk for most. We had, therefore, erected barriers to innovation by limiting the potential channels to market in the sense of high costs of data and technologies that could not get distribution. This did not discomfit the incumbent operators for most of this decade (they were cash rich), and technologies like aGPS were slowed on the network and in handsets.

As a result, what we have had 'accidental serendipity' in mobile development: that is, when technologies have broken through in an uncoordinated way, for example like tag recognition using cameraphones.

I think something important has now changed that is going to reconfigure the mobile marketplace over the next few years. The arrival of competitors to mobile operators in their own space like Skype, Apple and Google and crucially, the arrival of 'all you can eat' flat mobile data tariffs has liberalised the market. It is now possible for a technology to break through on an open platform (e.g. Linux phones or Google Android) such as digital compasses for orientation support in navigation or gaming. And it is now possible for a service proposition to break through on a regular mobile operator handset as the user can use mobile data without looking over their shoulder at the byte count. Apple has also lowered the bar to distribution of mobile services through the app store on iPhone.

The consequence of this for mobile information? Now we can get applications on our 'universal information appliance' which are 'for the rest of us'. Not designed by engineers at handset manufacturers or mobile operators, but by developers who have the connection to the market from which all really great business propositions spring. So I am loving Twitter on mobile: it has become a kind of open collaboration platform for co-workers and friends, but needs always-on cheap data traffic. Twitter has given me what I didn't know I needed, that is, the ability to 'think aloud in cyberspace' wherever I am. I also love the various GPS-enabled search services and navigation tools that have been enabled by aGPS services provided by third parties like Broadcom.

So, now mobile information is ready to roll, despite the credit crunch. Search, navigation, collaboration, photography, diaries, news, television, guides, teaching: they are all now open for far-reaching innovations as the mobile platform opens out and chews up existing channels to market and settled formats. Now is the time for brokerage between tech and marketing in mobile applications: it has never been easier to gain access to mobile platforms, even if the disciplines of producing stable and usable applications for mobile are still tough.

So, now we face new frontiers in mobile information development:

The developers who are surmounting these challenges to produce new mass applications are changing everything we know about information. Information is being liberated from static and costly delivery formats like the mobile operator portals, which by and large have been terrible. Instead, information is real-time and free at the point-of-use on YouTube or vTap, it is becoming fluid and personal on services like Twitter or Gypsii, and it can be delivered with greater relevance on the move thanks to mobile search like Google Maps. The societal changes that might result will be profound... but that will have to wait for another post.

Jonathan

However, it is not the volume of surveillance per se that worries me... it is the access to this data that is the problem. I'm not sure I believe that the police intend to (have the capacity to?) follow where all the cars in the UK go, even ones owned by protesters and activists who have committed no crime but whose movements would surely be monitored in a truly totalitarian state. I'm more worried by the leaks, corruption and errors that will undoubtedly occur, and which has the potential to unleash the power of the state on individuals with casual brutality. So, for example, the jilted policeman who stalks his ex-partner, the mis-read plate that puts innocent people on a watch list making it hard to get insurance, and the mysterious arrival of the paparazzi in the just the right place to snap a prominent figure visiting a brothel. All the indications are that though we have the capacity to create these databases we don't have the ability to secure them nor sufficiently high levels of personal integrity to use them responsibly. This is illustrated perfectly by the way that local authorities are now using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to spy on people engaged in minor offences, or the way that sensitive data sets (like the names and addresses of everyone in prison) can be lost on a USB memory stick.

There is, however, one more interesting implication of this story. Why is it that plans to introduce Pay As You Drive (PAYD) road pricing and Oyster card monitoring lead to general outrage and yet ANPR, or even CCTV proliferation do not raise a murmur amongst the public? I am guessing here that the Guardian's story will generate some letters and blog postings (like this!) but not lead to civil disobediance. Is it their remote nature, or is it their ownership by the Police as opposed to the government that makes the difference? I find it fascinating that in the UK we are prepared to tolerate camera based surveillance (ANPR & CCTV) but when it is proposed that we use mobile devices to monitor driving for taxation purposes (even when they only report aggregate road use), then we suddenly discover our privacy again. Is is the taxation aspect? Perhaps. Or is it that people feel different about tag-like device that is always with them (like Oyster cards)... compared to the way they feel about the gaze of a camera on a pole whose monitoring is unperceived and theoretically avoidable? In which case why do people not feel concerns about the way that mobile phones can monitor their movements anyway? Whatever it is, the distinction feels important, and it suggests that the solution to the government's dilemma about road pricing is at hand: use ANPR!

It might also lead us to some conclusions about privacy in a digital world. To me, the solution to all of the concerns about the way that imagery, tracks and records are accumulating is to fling open the doors and make the data available to the people who generate them (e.g. for ANPR data, via the Driver Vehicle Licencing Agency (DVLA)). The ANPR records could be used to do your mileage claims automatically... or underpin your claim for a lower insurance premium. It would allow people to check for errors and allow anyone concerned about knowledge of their their movements to discount what the authorities know. I doubt it would benefit terrorists... it is now very difficult to stay off the cameras... and requesting the data involves breaking cover. If the deepest root of concern about privacy intrusions is the asymmetry of knowledge between us and the state, then opening the datasets up to the generators redresses the balance and demystifies the data: who knows, it may even be less accurate than speculation might suggest...

Jonathan Raper

Leading LBS sites with a western focus: please contact Jonathan Raper on raper@soi.city.ac.uk to add sites

Mobile guides

Camineo Content mobilisation and location-aware mobile guides

Creativity Software Content mobilisation

Wild Knowledge Educational field trip content delivery

Personal routing and navigation

Satnav

Tom Tom Satnav and connected navigation

Garmin Satnav and personal navigation

Webraska Satnav and personal navigation

Destinator Satnav solutions

Networks in Motion Satnav and personal navigation

Pedestrian

Navitime Pedestrian navigation- Japan

Nokia Maps Pedestrian navigation- Europe & N. America

Kizoom Mobile train information UK

GPSdash GPS navigation

AmazeGPS GPS navigation

Traffic

TrafficMaster Traffic UK

Landsonar Traffic US

ITIS Traffic UK

Leisure

Trimble Outdoor leisure applications

ViewRanger Augmented reality

Verne 21 Mobile tourism

Ambiesense Mobile tourism

Mobile search

Mobile SEO

Mippin Mobile portal

Medio Search platform

Jumptap SEO tools for mobile

Vtap Mobile video search

Taptu Mobile social search

Zodigo Mobile entertainment search

Mobile local

Mobile commerce Local portal provider

M:Spatial Local portal provider

Nearby Now Retail local provider

Seero Video on the map

Lightpole Local content discovery

Zillow Mobile real estate

Location-based advertising

Seeker Wireless Zone detection

Jentro Mobile advertising middleware

Upingme Mobile local advertising

Mobile social media

Social

Loopt Mobile social network- USA

Plazes Mobile social network- global

Gypsii Mobile social network- global

AkaAki Mobile social network- Germany

Dopplr Travel plan sharing

Rummble Mobile social network- global

Locatrix Mobile social network- Australia

BuddyPing Mobile social network- UK

Socialight Mobile social network- USA

Brightkite Mobile social network- USA

ZKout Mobile social network- USA

Whrll Mobile social network- USA

Ipoki Social tracking- USA

Photo sharing

Zurfer Location-based photo sharing

Locr Location-based photo sharing

Gaming

Ambient Performance Location-based gaming

Whereigo Location-based gaming

Plundr Location-based gaming

Mapping and tracking

Navteq LBS map content for satnav

Teleatlas LBS map content for satnav

Automotive Navigation Data LBS map content for satnav

Memory-Map LBS map content for outdoor leisure

OpenStreetMap Community-made mapping

Cloud Made Tools to access Community-made mapping

Pocket GPS World Traffic POIs

POI friend POI creation community

Yotta Video mapping

Trackstick Tracking hardware

Tools

Where.com Location API

Qualcomm BREW API and SDK for GPS hardware

Useful Networks Location API

Geovector API for orientation

Geopositioning

Loki Location broker

Skyhook Location broker

Navizon Location broker

Fire Eagle Location broker

Location-based comedy

The Mapsters The Mapster Monsters from Nokia

230 miles of Love Comedy as you drive along the M6 motorway in UK

City University, London Tuesday July 22nd 2008

This one day Masterclass will provide participants with an end-to-end analysis of the current state and development of the rapidly growing market for mobile search. Use of mobile search tools on operator portals in the UK increased by a third from 2006-7 according to M:Media, and forecasts from eMarketer suggest a further doubling of W.European users by 2011 making it one of the most rapidly growing mobile services. With mobile search offerings already established through mobile operator portals and as downloadable smartphone applications from Yahoo, Microsoft and Google there is a widespread interest in capturing the attention and revenue of the mobile user.

However, the opportunities in this area require an understanding of a sophisticated technological environment and complex value chain. How do the underlying search technologies work and to what are they sensitive? In mobile search context is critical but what types of positioning/ presence should be offered for each kind of mobile search proposition? Do the mobile offerings from the 'big three' really work, and who are the startups that have compelling new propositions? Is the mobile content 'fit-for-purpose', and how do you extract 'local' content from the web? How do you monetise mobile search- is branded content better than mobile advertising? The search is still on for the winning formula: this Masterclass will bring together specialists in search technologies with world leading business analysts to bring you comprehensive advice on the present and future of mobile search.

This Masterclass is designed for all those seeking to understand mobile search better, whether in R&D or in business development. It will be accessible to all those with an interest in mobile search and taught by experienced presenters with research and commercial experience, including:

Professor Jonathan Raper, Editor of the Journal of Location Based Services and CEO of Placr Ltd

Dr David Mountain, Lecturer and Technical Director of Placr Ltd

Dr Ayse Göker, Lecturer and Director of Ambiesense Ltd.

Andrew Grill, General Manager, Sales & Business Development, Seeker Wireless

Session 1: Foundational search technologies