[incision]

>Or at least that is what it looks like, with the focus on gathering new portals at points of interest.

Yeah.

I played Ingress pretty heavily from launch till the beginning of this year.

As best I can tell, it's just what you describe with players serving to scout and submit new points of interest and check/refine the accuracy of existing submissions. I expect they're also gathering a wealth of location fine location data that could be applied to walking directions and public accessibility.

One of the more interesting possibilities I see for Ingress data is insight how information moves in social networks and how far a person will travel out of their way for a "reward".

I can see the collection and distribution of redeemable codes at Ingress cross-promotion locations being useful insight into a refined take on daily deals.