Sense Networks creates mobile platform to track socializing habit
July 22, 2008 – 12:22 pm by Kyle WelterDebuting its alpha product late June, Sense Networks has begun to implement their City Sense network throughout San Francisco and other smaller test grounds including Cambridge, MA. The idea behind City Sense is to utilize mobile tracking capabilities in order to process and display the movement of the people in a city. In simple terms, as you travel from home to work, your cell phone emits a signal in which City Sense documents and places on a grid along with the other 100,000 citizens surrounding you. These travel details are then be placed on a matrix-type grid which shows the busiest and slowest areas of town. Not only is this concept interesting, but it also has boundless amounts of opportunities for marketers to promote their properties.
In Cambridge, MA, one of the main test cities, City Sense collects data through the strategic placement of 100 nodes on light poles and government buildings (as displayed in the pictures below). The data is collected through an opt-in service and the data transmitted is completely anonymous (so don’t freak out about big brother too much). Unfortunately for marketers, since the data is anonymous, there is no way (right now) to track demographics such as 18-24 males. Hopefully in the future, users will be able to opt-in and display their demo in order to track travel habits of specific age/gender groups. Does this remind anyone of Bruce Wayne’s Cellular phone mapping grid in the Dark Knight or is that just me?
As described by Allen Stern of Center Networks, a cab driver could easily pull up a map in his car of the busiest areas in town in order to find people and avoid which bridges are backed up etc. If your goal is to find out where the hottest bar in town is for the night or to avoid the city traffic, City Sense is for you.
