Tuesday, November 11, 2014

In-store GPS technology

A previous post addressed three technological approaches to in-store GPS technology.  They are:
  • The use of high-pitched frequency
  • Triangulation of an in-store wi-fi signal
  • Bluetooth low-energy detectors (also called beacons) – with one-foot detection accuracy
This American Marketing Association post focuses on the third technology -- bluetooth enabled low-energy detectors or beacons. 
https://www.ama.org/publications/MarketingNews/Pages/beam-me-up-scotty.aspx

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Twitter, advertising, and big data

This is an interesting post from The Guardian about how Twitter can make (and is making) money from advertising and big data.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/05/twitter-soggyfries-big-data-advertising

Sunday, November 2, 2014

ComputerWorld article in in-store GPS technology

This interesting ComputerWorld article explains in-store GPS technology

Basically, there are three approaches described here:
  • The use of high-pitched frequency
  • Triangulation of an in-store wi-fi signal
  • Bluetooth low-energy detectors (also called beacons) – with one-foot detection accuracy
Interestingly, this may be a way for brick-and-mortar retailers to counteract the practice of showrooming.  Page 4 of the article says, “consumers are also 46% less likely to go comparison shopping if they have a particular retailer’s app running on their device.”   

Page 4 also indicates that Web retailers have the technological capability to surreptitiously collect the network IDs of the routers in retail stores and, then, send low-price offers to the store’s customers whose phones are communicating with the routers.” That would be a pretty aggressive pricing practice.