You don't have to fully understand the advanced technology behind these services to understand the advantages of them. For example, emergency services can pinpoint the location of an injured person that couldn’t give an exact location or didn’t know their location when calling the emergency number. Also from a more business viewpoint, many delivery companies have already installed such systems into their vehicles to aid estimated delivery times and map vehicle routes.

Traffic-Master, a company providing map solutions for both personal and business customers, allow users to navigate a route via their GPS system. They can tailor their route to specific needs, such as driving on a certain road or avoiding heavy delays such as traffic jams. Such use of the technology is also helping the environment, in the form of reduced fuel consumption due to the tailoring of quick efficient routes to destinations.  

French company Camineo provide innovative mobile applications which act as a digital tourist guide. Users can find out about a range of attractions and services based on their location. Most would agree a lifesaver when trying to find the nearest kids attractions and cutting down on time spent navigating with a map.

The technology is also aiding the police and providing a rich stream of information. Evidence for this was shown in the tragic murder of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. This story had a huge impact on the British public due to the convicted murderer being a school caretaker who actively had contact with the murdered girls. The conviction of Ian Huntley was based loosely on critical mobile phone evidence. Huntley thought that if he covered up the forensic tracks then he would be in the clear. Despite this mobile phone signal information proved that one of the girl’s mobile phones was turned off at Huntley’s house. This was achieved because of the process a mobile phone goes through before it is switched off, a process, which is recorded by the cell site mast.

Professor Raper founded the giCentre back in 1999 (a centre for active research within geographical information) and has both academic and business interest in the field, with his spin-off company Placer Limited providing business solutions. These two mindsets are brought together in the Journal of Location Based Services, of which he is Editor-in-Chief. Professor Raper describes this role as a “halfway house mindset between the academic mindset and the business mindset”.

See video interview with Professor Jonathan Raper.

Another hue on the location based spectrum is that of location based advertising. This has huge market potential. Advertising in traditional media already generates vast revenues, but what is now the most widely reachable delivery platform? The mobile phone.

Location based advertising has already begun to penetrate the mainstream media and it’s only a matter of time until someone wins the battle and harnesses its full power. The Economist published an article on how mobile advertising is finally taking off. American mobile advertisers AdMob say the number of advertisements they delivered to a worldwide audience, tripled in the last 12 months, with figures approaching 4.5 billion. Due to faster network speeds, increased hardware capabilities and also improved screen size, "the obstacles that have held mobile advertising back are going away".

On his blog ‘London Calling’, location based advertising evangelist, Andrew Grill talks about how mobile advertising will work and what are the benefits to businesses. (http://www.andrewgrill.com/blog/)

Click here to see how effective location based advertising could be.