Behavioral Targeting & Mobile Computing May be Here Sooner Than we Think

On my flight home from Seattle I was reading the most recent issue of Mac | Life and came across an interesting article. The article was talking about the upcoming iPhone update and the different views people had of the software developer kit (SDK). Half way through the article was a little sub story on these venture capitalist and how they created an "iFund" that they would use to invest in companies that are going to "invent the future" using mobile computing in the areas of social networking, mobile payments, entertainment, health, and the enterprise. So you are probably thinking "Gary where are you going with this." Well here is the point. One of the companies that the iFund have invested in is a Seattle-based company named Pelago. They are developing a location-aware program called Whrll that helps you find places, events, & people when you are on the go.

When I read that my ears popped up. It reminded me of one of the conversations that I had ad the Ad2SD event,"Myspace vs Yourspace." We were talking about behavioral targeting and how it would be awesome to be on the go and have alerts when you are near areas of interest. Or better yet know your fuel spending habits & let you know when you are near a cheap gas station. I know that this may open the door for a wide array of privacy issues. You can read my blog entry "Reality Mining: The future of marketing, or a privacy nightmare" to get my view of the topic.

I haven't had the chance to research the product yet so I don't know if the app will have those abilities, but I'm excited to see that technology is moving closer in that direction. When I get a chance to research Whrll I will post my findings. Also If anyone has any info please let me know.