{"id":5015,"date":"2014-05-02T06:54:38","date_gmt":"2014-05-02T06:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/passkit.com\/?p=5015"},"modified":"2024-10-08T13:15:17","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T13:15:17","slug":"3-things-i-hate-about-the-ibeacon-hype","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/3-things-i-hate-about-the-ibeacon-hype\/","title":{"rendered":"3 things I hate about the iBeacon hype"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Today\u2019s guest post is from David Jones, Founder\/CEO of <a href=\"http:\/\/streethawk.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">StreetHawk<\/a>. David is a serial internet company founder who previously started SurfControl Email Filter (now WebSENSE), ThreatMetrix and is a mentor with the acclaimed StartMate accelerator. You can follow him at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/streethawkapp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@streethawkapp<\/a> &amp; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/djinoz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@djinoz<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>iBeacon Inverted Value Pyramid<\/h2>\n<p>iBeacon news is everywhere and changes in IOS 7 updates are making good news fodder but I want to clarify some real \u201cvalue\u201d points about iBeacon solutions. I\u2019ll call this the \u201cinverted value pyramid\u201d.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"center\" src=\"http:\/\/streethawk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/ibeacon-inverted-value-pyramid-300x257.png\" alt=\"ibeacon inverted value pyramid\" title=\"\"><br \/>\nThis pyramid helps you decode the value of iBeacons in a business, brand, promotor or an App developer context.<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"background-color: #359f51; color: white; font-size: 130%; font-style: italic; padding-top: 12px; text-align: center;\"><p>The smaller the triangle, the lower the value.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2>Layers of Value: iBeacon, Passbook, Apps<\/h2>\n<p>So:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>At the base of the pyramid, iBeacon hardware on their own are the lowest value<\/li>\n<li>Next step up the pyramid is the possibility for retailers, museums, brands, airlines to incorporate iBeacon with some of the features of Passbook. I\u2019ll do a detailed post on Passbook iBeacon integration because it&#8217;s good but has a few hidden gotchas.<\/li>\n<li>Most value at the top of the pyramid is integrating iBeacons with Mobile or Tablet Apps. The most flexible and meaningful uses for iBeacons are in conjunction with a specific experience. For example:\n<ul>\n<li>A Museum can help users discover exhibit information<\/li>\n<li>Playgrounds and Museums will run treasure hunts for kids<\/li>\n<li>Dating Apps will allow proximity matching for \u201csimilar likes\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Business Apps might exchange business card\/contact data quickly<\/li>\n<li>Retail can measure footfall and attribute to a specific marketing activity earlier on the App<\/li>\n<li>Retail might trigger an event in Aisle 5 because a user put the Pasta Sauce on the shopping list.<\/li>\n<li>etc. The possibilities are limitless.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>iBeacon Hype Hate List<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Hate 1<\/strong>: my first item on the iBeacon hype hate list is: <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Assigning magical properties to a new gadget.<\/span><br \/>\nMuch of the press about iBeacons latches on to the magical properties of \u201cnever-before-available\u201d capabilities. The green section of the pyramid is what iBeacons can do for you on their own\u2026..the answer is \u201cnot much\u201d.<br \/>\nThey might be great as a talking point and as a sales tool in a meeting, they help people to grasp the potential, but other than that you can\u2019t make much use of them.<br \/>\n<strong>Hate 2<\/strong>: <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Magic Happens.<\/span> The great news about iBeacon and Passbook is that it allows long-tail retailers to potentially use coupons without delivering Apps. It also allows big retailers\/brands to use Passbook as a new customer acquisition channel.<br \/>\nHowever, here is my list of <strong>\u201cit&#8217;s not magic\u201d<\/strong> points:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Implementation Magic \u2013 whether you do Passbook or Apps to implement iBeacons, there is a stack of planning and implementation to get this running. At this stage iBeacon needs technical people to get a deployment.<\/li>\n<li>Proximity Magic \u2013 iBeacons transmit \u201cradio\u201d signals \u2013 so reception varies. Problems include: iBeacon signal overlap, over-promising how accurate proximity will be. What happens when your phone is in your handbag.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cMe, Me, Me\u201d Magic \u2013 iBeacons will become pervasive. Why will a shopper prefer your Popup in comparison to all the other Popups in Passbook? Apple\u2019s current implementation is to silently show Passbook, so it&#8217;s a high probability your user won\u2019t see your coupon. My discussion above on Apps shows that if a user is already engaged with your Brand\/Location\/Venue\/Retailer then you are going to get the best engagement and response rates.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cOne Beacon to Rule them All\u201d Magic \u2013 Passbook is on Apple only \u2013 forget about Android users. In the US, EU, Australia this is roughly 50% of customers you are missing. In Asia, Android penetration is much higher so the Apple users are a small part of your customer base. Some startups are doing Passbook things on Android but its not automagically installed on Android phones.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Hate 3<\/strong>: <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">No talk of cost of ownership<\/span> \u2013 Here is how it will play out&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You\u2019ve deployed iBeacons and your campaigns but you don\u2019t seem to be getting much response.<\/li>\n<li>Investigation reveals that your iBeacon near the front-door of the store has gone missing. Yep, <strong>stolen or \u201csouvenired\u201d<\/strong>. The replacement is more than $30 for the device, there is the setup of the new iBeacon ID\u2019s and associated campaign configs.<\/li>\n<li>Not stolen? So you shake it a bit, give it a bang on the cash register but still no luck. Its probably got a <strong>flat battery<\/strong>. Some vendors are cleverly and correctly providing monitoring but you also have to provide the data paths to get that info back to a central monitoring platform, so that introduces security holes that IT are going to want to audit.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Customer Hijacking<\/strong> \u2013 it&#8217;s possible to sniff other iBeacons. That means (as far as I can tell) your competitors could have an App that pops up a message when your customer enters your store \u2013 enticing them to come to their shop!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So there you have it. A quick fun post on the practicalities of introducing a new gizmo into your mobile marketing initiatives. The iBeacon technology wave will have great benefits but <strong>we think the big VALUE will be found in Apps<\/strong>.<br \/>\n<em>This post was originally published at <a href=\"http:\/\/streethawk.com\/blog\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/streethawk.com\/blog<\/a> and you can follow StreetHawk at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/streethawkapp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@streethawkapp<\/a>.<\/em><br \/>\nFor more information on iBeacon, visit our <a href=\"https:\/\/passkit.com\/gemtot-beacons-eddystone-ibeacon-altbeacon\/\">proximity services resource center<\/a>. If you&#8217;re ready to purchase beacons, check out our <a href=\"\/buy-ibeacon\/\">GemTot USB beacons<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today\u2019s guest post is from David Jones, Founder\/CEO of StreetHawk. David is a serial internet company founder who previously started SurfControl Email Filter (now WebSENSE), ThreatMetrix and is a mentor with the acclaimed StartMate accelerator. You can follow him at @streethawkapp &amp; @djinoz. iBeacon Inverted Value Pyramid iBeacon news is everywhere and changes in IOS [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ibeacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18161,"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5015\/revisions\/18161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}