This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will examine non-networked means of delivering location-based services for mobile narrative content. Mobile content is rapidly expanding within the booming global tourism market. Untravel has entered this market with locally-produced, high-end multimedia walking tours, Mobile Media Documentaries (MMDs), for a variety of handsets. The Company is proposing background research, software prototyping to determine the effectiveness and market potential of a set of location-based services. These services can potentially be delivered with more granularity and timeliness than other location-based services (GPS, cell phone tower triangulation, or wi-fi location) because users are walking along a known tour path. Specifically, the research will develop software for delivering path geosptatial coordinates to mobile devices at point of purchase. The effort will prototype a photo geotagging function and a push advertising system based on these known path coordinates. Finally, the research will develop a user profile system that allows adjustment of tour length and path.
This research has broader commercial potential in developing general locative systems within the travel industry. Outside of the travel industry, the results of the study could be applied to many types of known path activities such as planned shopping trip, one's daily commute to work, and the paths between friends' houses. The enhancement to Untravel's MMD production outlined in this proposal could significantly increase user control of tour content and ability to share highlights of trips taken. The research also holds the potential for rapid expansion of location-based services to a wide variety of mobile devices. In general, the research promotes a role for serious narrative and documentary storytelling within the rapidly expanding mobile technology sector.
