Context Awareness Gets Real

• Devices that know where you are improve a variety of services. Now comes the next step.

Over the last few years, location-based services—mostly available through smartphones—have led to new and more powerful capabilities in areas as diverse as weather forecasting and product marketing. The technology is rapidly changing the way businesses and consumers view and access data as well as how they interact with it.

What makes location-based capabilities so popular—and valuable—is the ability to put information in context. For example, the system might assess that a person is in proximity to a store and that she has recently exchanged messages in a social media stream about needing winter gloves or buying a car. A store or a dealership might then send a coupon or promotion.

The value of context: More targeted, efficient and less costly communications.

However, today’s systems remain in the nascent stages. An emerging IT revolution revolves around context-aware systems that can, among other things, adapt interfaces to the specific needs of a user and deliver highly targeted information—including marketing and advertising—from businesses.

In addition, firms in transportation, utilities, energy and healthcare stand to gain considerable efficiency from context-aware computing through the use of presence-enhanced apps.

“The disruptions caused by context-aware computing will include major user, technology and business shifts,” Gartner analyst William Clark reports. The consulting firm predicts that Context-Aware Computing will begin to significantly influence consumer-facing and security strategies in 2012. The latter also includes fraud detection and prevention. By 2015, Gartner says that context-aware technologies will influence $96 billion in annual consumer spending.

“Enterprises can leverage context-aware computing to better target and deliver on the promise of increased customer intimacy for millions of consumers,” Clark notes. “The timing of investment in context-aware computing will be critical. Organizations that do not prepare for thoughtful information sharing—balancing usage, privacy and business models of consumers, context providers, and the enterprises themselves—will be at a severe disadvantage.”