Most people don’t yet get it, but beacons as a platform are really a wedge into ‘appifying’ the physical world. They give context to a physical space. They are a way of actually extending the network intelligence to the edge again, something that has been missing since the desktop era. Beacons are truly a way of giving your smartphone eyes—place dumb signs around you and let your phone discover and read them.

As this new edge network that’s arriving finally converges the online and physical worlds, it has the potential to make your life as a consumer radically better and completely change mobile behavior. We are in inning one of connecting a person’s unique identity to offline devices, people, objects and physical places and it’s very clear that the most exciting times yet for mobile lie ahead.