Rover, now Google certified

Rover is proud to be one of the first location-services providers to be certified by Google

The last few years have seen some major developments in location-based marketing, and more specifically the evolution of beacon technology. While many associate beacons with the familiar iBeacon protocol launched by Apple a few years ago, it’s Google that has been driving innovation and ramping up support for beacons recently. Over the past year, Google has made major enhancements to how developers and consumers can engage with beacons on their devices, addressing challenges that existed with the iBeacon protocol and making it easier than ever for brands and app publishers to bring location-based awareness to mobile devices.

I’ve written about some of these improvements here — but in short, Google has addressed some of the major barriers that faced massive beacon adoption. A couple of notable enhancements include solving for the need to have an installed app on a user’s device in order to engage with a beacon, as well as the creation of the cloud infrastructure required to facilitate sharing or access to beacons that are already deployed.

Having faced these challenges with our customers as they roll out beacon-based campaigns, Rover has been hands on in solving for these types of challenges. In addition to our own efforts, we’ve been working alongside the Google Proximity team to help address the challenges brands and marketers face when looking to deliver scalable location-based initiatives and more relevant mobile experiences.

Recognizing that success in location-based content is about more than just beacon hardware, Google has launched a certification program for select Location Service Providers (LSPs) who are doing compelling work to enable engaging mobile user experiences. The program gives LSPs the opportunity to demonstrate that they can technically support all aspects of the Google beacon platform, and have their work checked by Google engineers. Rover is proud to have met the program’s criteria and to be among the first LSPs to be certified. Details of the program can be found here.

So what does this mean for Rover customers and brands looking to do more with location?

• Rover is now fully certified and tested by Google engineers to meet standards required to engage Android users using the Google Nearby API and Proximity Beacon service, part of Google Cloud Platform
• Rover is invited to collaborate with Google as new products and services are released
• Taking advantage of updates and new beacon features launched by Google is that much easier
• Brands and marketers can now reach much larger audiences by taking advantage of some of the unique no-app-required beacon features offered on Android

These are just a few of the highlights that will make it easier to leverage new beacon features from Google and we look forward to bringing more of these enhancements to life with our customers. We believe these strides will mean big things for the year ahead as more app publishers leverage location to create better experiences on mobile.