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According to MobiAD News, two stories that it has covered recently are indicating that Location-Based Advertising (LBA?) is becoming more of a reality – by the way, the companies involved in those stories are Skyhook Wireless, Loopt/CBS Mobile.
Skyhook Wireless have announced that they have introduced location based advertising to their software development kit. The development will allow mobile application creators to earn revenue from the ads that are delivered based on the user’s location. The service is different to many others as it uses wifi signals to locate a mobile phone. This is a novel way of locating a phone and is possible as the company has mapped wifi signals across 70% of the United States and 40 million access points worldwide. The ads are to be provided by Quattro Wireless.
CBS Mobile has agreeed a deal with Loopt to provide targeted location based ads. This will add an extra level of targeting to ads on CBS properties, as ads will only appear when Loopt users visit one of CBS’ mobile sites. CBS will be able to tell the location of the user (via GPS) and will have the option of serving an ad for services in the nearby area.
So there you have it, different offerings that claim to deliver location-based Ads – neither of them using the Mobile network – of course, as we know, the Operators are all over Mobi Ads that do in some way make use of their networks, but the above does show that other channels are at least open.
Personally, I think the power to make this a cohesive offering is with those handset vendors (and suchlike) that have the scale and capability of operations to do so – Nokia, Apple, and Google all spring to mind…..! What say you, IntoMobile readers?
[Via: MobiAD News]
About The Author
Ben Robinson
Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas! He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to 'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device) isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question of why you continue to use it... His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.
