Last week Google launched the Latitude service.  Latitude allows you to notify your family and friends your location via your cell phone or computer.  The location updates are manual for now — so your cell phone does not automatically update your location. You simple go to the Google Latitude web site on your computer or through your mobile browser and enter your location. Your friends can see where you are and you can see where your friends are on a Google Maps interface.

Location aware devices are a HUGE development in technology.  Although this service requires users to manually enter their location GPS phones will soon do that automatically. By merging cell phone with location awareness you now have an extremely powerful marketing tool that we’ve all been talking about for years.  And remember that Google is in the Advertising business.  So expect Latitude to be a platform for pushing very relevant ads to your phone.

Thoughts:

• Expect to see a lot of activity around mobile and local search advertising.  Now that we know where the consumer is we can push very relevant promotions to them.  For instance,  Latitude knows that you and Sally frequent the local Starbucks — it knows where you are and where Sally is AND it knows where Starbucks is.  Now the local Dunkin Doughnuts can push promotions to you and Sally as you’re getting closer and closer to that Starbucks.
• Google will become the next Facebook.  I don’t have anything to back this up with other than we know Facebook will most likely fizzle out (remember they don’t make any money and their ad CTR are terrible) and that SocNet will go mobile.  Google has the platform and the machine to make a mobile Social Networking platform that dominates.
• Merge this Mobile Social Networking with Location Awareness and now add in a bit of User Generated Content in the form of consumer reviews and consumer price checking.  Add in the cell phone camera and now you have everyone a walking, talking, picture taking communication platform.
• Is there an entertainment angle here?  Will we finally see a Real World / Virtual World game that actually delivers?  Add in Latitude with Geo Tracking and a Story Line and you may be onto somethings. Here’s the idea — set up 4 games in a location.  For example, “Vampires”, “Spies”, “Dungeons”, and “CSI – Your Town”.  Someone playing “Spies” needs to leave a secret letter under the mail box on the coner of 1st and main.  Players of “Dungeons” need to pick up a secret letter under the mail bos on the corner of 1st and main.  Each game will fuel the other — all of the them fueled by Location aware devices and Social Net.

Next time you’re asked “What’s the next BIG thing” — for awhile you can answer “Location aware devices”

SpongeBob on the iPhone

Nickelodeon working with the development shop Mobui has launched a SpongeBob iPhone Ap.  More Nick character aps are in development.  Check out the press release here (link)  and a Mashable post here (link). This ap quickly rose to the top 10 iPhone ap list with over 3000 downloads per day.

I’ve been keeping an eye on iPhone aps mostly because I’d like to do one but haven’t found a way to justify it.  As iPhone sales continue to grow the users will start to include the target audience I’m after.  I’m wondering why Nick went with this — I’d guess that after 10 years on the air SpongeBob has a pretty large audience of 20 year old that are now carrying around iPhones.  But that doesn’t explain why Nick will soon be releasing Dora and iCarly aps. Another thought is that the dev shop was building Advergames for AddictingGames.com and Shockwave.com so why not tweak the code a bit and get an iPhone version.

The big picture here is that all phones will be iPhone or iPhone knock offs within 3 years.  Unfortunately, they will probably all have their own development code (unless Android takes off).  So there will be huge opportunities in reaching the mobile consumer through aps but they will be costly to develop across phone platforms.

Thoughts:

• As I’ve written before (post),  Mobile Aps as a marketing strategy will become HUGE!  Keep an eye on this space and consider the benefits of getting in early rather than waiting for the field to become very very crowded.
• Aps are great at connecting consumers with your brand in a very engaging way.  When developing these aps think about making them viral so fans of your brand can share their love with their friends.
• Also think about how the ap could drive to sales.  For example, could this SpongeBob Tickler ap tie into a physical product?

Walmart's iPhone Ap

For Valentine’s Day Walmart has launched an iPhone ap that allows users to blow the love of their life a kiss — and quickly find that perfect gift at Walmart.  With over 1MM iPhones in the US and thousand more sold each day expect to see more and more of these Promo-Aps.

Is the Promo-Ap the 30 Second spot of the future?   We’ll always have some form of the 30 second spot.  But the Promo-Ap is a strong contender for advertising dominance.  Why?  Because good aps add value that the consumer needs AND sells product. That combination can drive the entire buy cycle from awareness to direct purchase.

Here’s a freeby — want to make a kagillion dollars in 2025?  Start a development company that develops Promo-Aps for TV.

Mechanical Turk

The term “Mechanical Turk” comes from a 18th century chess board that appeared to be controlled by a mechanical device that looked like a Turk. In reality it was controlled by a very small and uncomfortable German.

Why is this important to Internet Marketing?  Because the term “Mechanical Turk” now means any online service that  is controlled by humans rather than servers.  The most interesting example of this is Amazon Mobile.  This new service from Amazon allows users to take a picture of any object and within a couple minutes the user will be able to buy the object directly from Amazon.

Amazon Mobile

I’ve tried this and it is amazing — we took pictures of a stapler, a Frisbee, a pen, and a bunch of other things and the only thing it did not specifically recognize was a Transformer figure from the 80s.

If you have an idea that needs humans over server power check out Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service — Amazon’s service takes care of all the details to get your mechanical turk up and running.

I just realized this sounded like an ad — it’s not. I’m just a big fan and think there are a bunch of business opportunities here.