DISQUS

Ben Kunz · 4 months ago

Perhaps. All networks - fax, phone, email, Twitter, and now geo-locations in social media - attract spam.

But markets and human networks also are self-correcting. If marketers push too hard -- pinging your cell phone with offers say -- consumers will pay for filters, as easy as snapping off the GPS location feature in an iPhone. The more likely scenario is that spammy pushes in social networks will piss off consumers and fail (are you listening, Izea?), while aggregating systems that collect the geographic data and use it elsewhere may win. I would imagine there are huge marketing benefits in mapping where consumers travel, how they shop, and the relationships between people during purchase cycles.

The analogy today is credit card transactions. Every card you swipe is tracked, the data is compiled, shipped through Experian and becomes a mailing list for direct mail. But your credit card only inputs the data, doesn't push the marketing message out. Marketers use of geographic data will take the same path, an analytics engine running behind the scenes.

I expect consumers to quickly adopt geographic tagging of each other, but they'll be the locus of control. Like Twitter and Facebook, their new location-based networks will be private conversations among themselves, with little chance for marketers to elbow in.

Tom Kasperski · 4 months ago

The impulse to spam exists, but apps/services to manage location based offers will be available soon - if they don't already exist.

Increasing use of this technology will have enormous implications for retailers and brick+mortar operations. 'Don't suck' will be more important than ever, because their reputations will be on public display anytime a customer thinking about a purchase decision.

mrhames · 4 months ago

Consider Google. Google launched with a simple advertising idea -- if you offer a cheap lunch, place your ad in front of people who search "cheap lunch".

At first though, Google took anyone's money. They let the market dictate the price. If a person bought Cheap Lunch to sell boats, then who's to stop them? Google? If the guy is willing to pay $6 for a click, they are willing to sell a boat guy "Cheap Lunch".

Except, Google is also a tool. And people use it because it offers good (read relevant) results. Google realized this and incorporated a Quality Score. It's a confusing thing that essentially measures relevance of ad with landing page and keyword. The more relevant the ad, the cheaper and higher it is. Thus, google rewards relevance because it has to. If things stayed irrelevant, we'd start to use Ask (or Bing).

Now, take location based ads. Unlike the mailbox (it can't filter out content, it's just a thing), the handheld is battling other handhelds for your 2-year contract. If they over spam, that's a reason to leave.

So, fear not, I think.

Alan Wolk · 3 months ago

@Ben, Matt & Tom: Not so sure about how unspamlike the market will be. I keep seeing many things going to a free-with-advertising or pay-and-no-advertising model. And the free-with-advertising model is likely going to be a spam fest. It's only a matter of time before location is not optional- it'll be something you give up in order to get a reduced price on your phone.

And the whole privacy thing will be tough for many consumers to get around in terms of location unless it's automatic.

Given the current way phone companies treat customers, I can easily see them all creating a situation where there's a pretty high level of spam, just this side of totally annoying. And while 10 text messages about where to eat lunch may be an exaggeration on my part, I'm still seeing location as being another source of clutter rather than the wonderful tool for receiving the exact ad I want to see at the exact time I want to see it, as certain boosters have suggested.

passitalong · 3 months ago

Hey Alan,

Great post as always dude!

"Advertisers can’t be trusted to exhibit restraint."

Touche.

Not only can we not trust advertisers, we can't trust the agencies, consultants or authors that want to be relevant.

And let's not forget the Spam-Bots. The majority of traffic on the web is from bots, not people. So imagine when the bots take over twitter (already happening - auto follow services).

Dude. Tangent. What is tweetboard??? Totally rad!

Alan Wolk · 3 months ago

Thanks Sean. Funny- I forgot who told me about Tweetboard. It may have been David Berkowitz, but it it pretty cool. (FYI, other readers- it's that little vertical tab on the left that says "tweets" - if you click on it, it expands and lets you tweet.