Far more people are willing to use mobile location based services than actually do so, according to a report (Location-Based Services: Where Are You) from Jupiter Research reports Silicon.com. While just 3 percent of mobile phone users surveyed said they use mobile navigation technology such as maps or turn-by-turn navigation, there are two distinct groups with a high level of interest:
-- Of parents with children under the age of 13, 42 percent said they “would be interested and willing to pay for services that would allow them to track the whereabouts of their children”, which researcher Julie Ask said is significant because relatively few under-13s have a mobile phone. That rises the hackles of privacy advocates but is nothing new—Disney is promoting that aspect of its service to parents in the US.
-- Of those mobile users aged 18 to 24 just over a quarter (26 percent) said they “would be interested in mobile social networking apps based on the location of their friends”. I’m sure there are caveats to that such as being able to turn off your location.

Both of these results are still the minority of users, and neither group is the biggest demographic around—but they’re both pretty attractive to companies.