| If tiny handheld communicators once seemed a little too Star Trek, consider that in the not too distant future when carriers, content providers and marketers come calling, they may not just be able to reach you — they’ll know where you are and tailor their pitches accordingly.
While the Internet may promise the highest level of personalization, it’s wireless technology, and more specifically, a broad range of wireless location services and techniques, will deliver personalization and bring wireless users closer to anytime, anywhere content delivery.
Wireless location technology, such as global positioning systems
(GPS) and Time-Distance Difference to Arrival (TDDA) — which help companies identify the location of a wireless device within several meters — is a fast-growing market that research company Strategis Group says will top $3.9 billion in 2004. In fact, industry gurus increasingly view location services as necessary to e-commerce’s success.
“A lot of the dreams of e-commerce are not ever going to be fulfilled until location services are up and available,” says Gartner Group analyst Bob Egan. He says traditional companies simply won’t be able to deliver custom offers anytime, anywhere without knowing where a user is. |
