Already, there are fledgling efforts at places like Starbucks Coffee to send you a coupon for a discount on a Latte if you went to a specific store nearby when you are on the move!
Checkout this article - A push too far for mobile coupons .
Geo-location enabled phones and smartphones are already the norm! GPS is being built into the phone itself. So much so GPS navigation device makers like Garmin and TomTom are having a rough time convincing investors that their market is not going away with SmartPhones and web sites offering turn-by-turn navigation!
Google's Free GPS Service Crushes Garmin, TomTom Shares
Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing currently has purchase patterns stored and analyzed, like if you choose your grocery card to get discounts when you visit them.
Business Intelligence is about to add one more dimension - GeoLocation to its information. Which areas do you frequent usually when you are at home, where do you travel, etc.
This raises a lot of very troubling privacy issues but like all other information about us, this too shall first find its abuses before uses!
Geo-location information enabled Business Intelligence will enable all kinds of very troubling marketing approaches and I am positive we will start to see some pretty out there kinds of spam!
Hope it doesn't happen but given the history of all other information about us, the consumers, this will open up a whole wild world of personal information and privacy issues!
Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds - John Perry Barlow
Hi,
Geolocation is everywhere in CRM, ERP, CMS (content management) ... and BI.
Adding pushpins on a Google Map resulting form a query (MDX or not) is more and more commun.
As for Geo-BI, where real analytics (Spatial OLAP and enriched MDX) able to considere geospatial is now possible.
Thats what we do.