Mobile Marketing

In class last week we talked about mobile marketing. At first I thought mobile marketing was just getting text messages on my phone. I have NO interest in getting text message advertising to my cell. Turns out that mobile marketing isn’t really that at all. I was first turned off of the idea of mobile marketing when we started talking, but by the end of class I sort of wished (even more) that I had an iphone or a smart phone so that I could use cool apps like Foursquare (a mobile marketing tool). This program isn’t very popular in Canada, and it’s a shame. It sounds like a really fun game and a great way to get out and discover new things in your area. It’s also a good way of getting “frequent visitor” bonuses if your favorite stores get involved.

So I’m sort of on the fence about the program. It would be pretty cool to walk into Starbucks and get “the usual, on the house” because I’m the Mayor, but at what expense?

I can sort of understand the apprehensiveness of Canadians though. You’re basically letting a program (and everyone else using the program) watch you at all times. It lets people know when you’re home, when you’re out shopping, or if you’re out of town. It’s a pretty big security risk for a not-so-big payback. Also, beyond a security risk, how are you supposed to deak out of lame dinner-parties because you’re “sick” when people can see that you’re actually out at a fancy restaurant with: “Who? Omigosh… so-and-so is there too! I wonder if they’re dating.”
What are you supposed to do? Leave your phone at home? Right…

I checked out Foursquare on my boyfriend’s iphone when I got home from class last week and we had a peek around… of course we made up a fake username and fake email address. Does that defeat the purpose? Lol. After checking some stuff out and “locations near us” we decided it wasn’t really for either of us. It’s just not popular enough around here. Ottawa is kind of a bore that way. We’re the capital of Canada, but we’re always the slowest in terms of catching on to cool technological trends. Come on Ottawa, get with it! Then maybe I’ll blog about this topic again.