Imagine that while businesses can easily establish an online presence
(website) nowadays, attracting and announcing their business presence
to unlimited people on the internet, businesses have no easy means of
attracting and announcing their presence to the surrounding people
(potential customers) in the vicinity of their business location.
While businesses can send promotional emails and e-coupons to people
at their homes, they can't send promotional messages to these
on-the-go people in the area but not yet in front of their businesses
(e.g., at a nearby bus stop, entering the shopping mall, etc). These
customers will be more likely to come immediately for relevant
promotions.
Similarly, while internet users can readily find information such as
locations of bus stops or transit stations from their home PC, they
can’t readily discover such information while they are on the go, when
they need it the most, for example, to locate the nearest bus stop
from their position wherever they are, or to pull out the schedules
of those buses that stop there.
This is a market that has been underserved, especially with the
increasing availability of GPS-enabled phones that are becoming more
common, and the increasing usage of mobile internet (due to increasing
availability of the devices and the shrinking costs of wireless data
plan).
Surround Networks aims to address this market, enabling people
to connect to their surroundings, and enabling businesses and venues
to connect to their surrounding people. Surround Networks is
aimed at addressing the "first mile" digital
connection and interaction between businesses and mobile users within
the "first mile" radius of the business location.
For Businesses, Surround Networks is a SaaS (software-as-a-service)
offering for location-based marketing and location-based services.
As Surround Networks for Businesses is a hosted self-service tool,
businesses do not need to install or maintain any server at their
business establishment to do location-based marketing or to offer
mobile customer services. Businesses can enter and manage their
marketing / services data through self-service Surround Control
Panel.
More on Surround Networks for
Businesses.
Mobile users can use Surround Networks via any internet-connected
mobile devices, desktops, and laptops.
Although useful, GPS is not required to use Surround
Networks.
More on Surround Networks for
Mobile Users.