The Relationship between User Location History and Interests in Products and Services

This study evaluated the use of location history as a predictor of user interests in products and services. Over a 1-month time period, subjects used a voicemail or email diary to report their visits to various establishments, such as shops and restaurants. At the end of the study, they completed questionnaires asking about their demographic characteristics, as well as their use of advanced mobile services and involvement in making decisions about the purchase or use of various products and services. A series of stepwise linear regressions showed that parameters derived from the diary data, when combined with demographic and mobile usage parameters, significantly improved predictions of product/service involvement, when compared to using the demographic and mobile usage predictors alone. These results suggest that location history measures could potentially be valuable components of algorithms for targeting commercial content to end users.