Geo Targeting and the Mobile Web
I have been re-reading the news reports coming out of the Wall Street Journal's D8 conference. Apple's CEO Steve Jobs spoke on June 1st and signaled the coming end to the PC. Jobs commented:
"The transformation of PC to new form factors like the tablet is going to make some people uneasy because the PC has taken us a long ways," he says. "The PC is brilliant...and we like to talk about the post-PC era, but it's uncomfortable."
However on June 3rd Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer made the remark:
"I think that people are going to be using PCs in greater and greater numbers for years to come. But I think PCs will look different...they'll evolve. They'll get smaller...they'll get touch...their innards will change. The real question is, 'What is a PC?' Nothing that's done on a PC today will get less relevant tomorrow. I think there will exist a general-purpose device that does anything you want, because people don't want multiple devices, or can't afford them."
So what does all of this mean for marketers? Over that past decade we have seen the increased importance of online and email marketing, but did you know that mobile handsets outnumber PCs nearly 4 to 1? I often see news reports from 3rd world countries where everyone has a cell phone.
If we look to the future envisioned by Steve Jobs and Steve Ballmer, 3G and 4G networks are going to allow the things we do on handsets to become more advanced. Larger screens and mobile apps allow more content to be displayed. One other key advancement on such devices and networks is geo-tagging. To enable this feature, the app developer can append current latitude and longitude to a user.
How will a marketer use this? We will be able to target users of a certain app within a certain distance of a location. At first this will be based on crude locations similar to what search engines do today with IP mapping. But one day you'll receive an ad for Dunkin' Donuts or Starbucks when you walk or ride by a location.
It still is not clear what the consumer will embrace and accept with these types of applications, but it is clear that this will require marketers to be even more intelligent in managing consumer preference.
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