Mobile Behavior: an Omnicom Group Company

Location Labs has put together a useful video to visualize and explain three types of geofences. It demonstrates how a location aware mobile phone can trigger alerts upon a user walking into or near a specified zone.

If you needed gas and had a turn-by-turn navigation program with geofencing support running on your device you could instantly see the best prices from stations within your area and someday even negotiate for a price based on what's left in your tank.

See the win-win situation here?  The gas station gets your business and you get a good price.  Sounds powerful.

While this is not a new idea, only recently have developers been able to create location based services that run at all times. Both Android and Apple's iOS 4 now support multitasking. It seems that auto check-ins are here, apps like Loopt and Mapquest already provide persistent location. Increasingly, we will see users navigating the world while receiving alerts about nearby friends and locations.

Watch Location Labs' geofencing demo here:

[via signalbuilder]