All the buzz swirling around social app Foursquare is good news for mobile advertising.
For years we've been promised location based services and the ability to match location with personal offers. Now with apps like Foursquare and Gowalla users are happy to reveal their location by 'checking in' giving advertisers permission to hit them based on location.
The check-in model is more attractive than constant tracking because it gives people more choice in disclosing their locations. And its gathering pace.
Foursquare has swelled to more than 500,000 users and has more than 1.6m 'check-ins' a weeks from around the world. Gowalla says it has 100,000 people using its application. Facebook is expected to adopt the 'check-in' method when it introduces location features in coming months.
One drawback with 'check-in' as opposed to constant monitoring is that people have to remember to use a service, but just as people have successfully got into the habit of tweeting they'll learn the habit of checking in.
If 'checking-in' goes mainstream its going to be good news for advertisers as it allows them to do some interesting things like coupons and offers based on location.
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