Overview
Presence Zones technology focuses on one of the main sensors for presence--the user's location. In order to benefit from location information, services must understand not only the physical location of the user, but also the context of this location. For example, to determine the optimal time to send a promotion SMS about new cosmetics, the system must know when the user is near the cosmetics section on the store, rather than in a certain GPS location or in a certain city. Understanding the exact context of a user's location and being able to detect the user's presence in the specified location can become a real differentiator for location based services.
Presence Zones identifies a cellular phone user's location and associates contextual information about the location, whether school, office, home, move theater, shoe store, etc. It builds on Presence and existing sensor technologies (bluetooth, RFID, GPS, triangulation), while adding contextual information provided by the location/zone owner. Armed with this information, many interesting applications can be created from advertising, gaming, dating, call routing, etc.
Presence Zones enables service providers to differentiate themselves by both providing innovative location-based services, as well as by collecting important trend data on users habits. This information can also be sold to advertisers and other interested parties. Both represent new sources of revenue for the service provider. A Presence Zones user moves from place to place with his mobile device. Using one or more location tracking technologies, the system identifies the user's location, associates the location context which has been pre-registered, and sends this information to the Presence Server. The Presence Zones service logic component can then carry out the required service, which could be targeted advertising, gaming, dating, call routing, etc. The system also logs the presence data in order to enable analysis to identify trends.
