Yahoo has launched its Fire Eagle platform that aims to centralize location data to make it easily available for both users and developers to access and use accordingly. One of the huge benefits, from a marketing standpoint, is it now allows for the integration of location data into mobile marketing campaigns.
Since the platform is open, developers and advertisers alike can use location data from their respective demographic to build campaigns they might not otherwise have been able to do because of the cost, time, and know-how of incorporating such data.
As a user, privacy control is the number one concern. Fire Eagle provides a central collection area that Yahoo maintains where users can update their location, and choose which sites to share the information with. The user, not the developer, has complete control of how that data is used within any application or campaign.
Location-aware mobile campaigns are the future of mobile marketing and this introduction means it might be coming sooner rather than later. Imagine easily plugging into the platform to know where a certain user-group is at all times. You can reduce your overall cost by deploying messages and advertising only when it’s most appropriate and when the users are most likely to use them.
On the other hand, it will be interesting to see how many users actually make their location public. Still, not many mobile devices are capable of reporting location-data, and out of those few, not many will be willing to share the information to just anyone. It’s a good step forward, but still a little ahead of its time if you ask me.
