Wednesday, June 3. 2009

Google Local Business Center Updated

Google Local Business Center is a free tool for small businesses. It now sports a dashboard and integration with Google Maps so that small biz owners can see what terms drive traffic to their sights and from where. Among the goodies:

- "Zip code information shows where customers are coming from when they request directions to a business listing."
- information on when results come from a Google search vs. a Google Maps search

This looks like a great tool to help educate prospective location intelligence users!

- Google Blog post
via Internet News

Tuesday, May 19. 2009

Directions & USGIF: Collaborating on Geospatial

We announced today a relationship with the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), the not for profit organization that focuses on the intelligence community (IC). It was relationship that was forged between myself and Keith Masback, the USGIF president, in order to promote a better understanding of what the IC can bring to business and vice versa. Is there any difference between spying on the bad guys and spying on your competitor? Maybe, but the foundation of intelligence gathering using geospatial technology is similar. We also realized that education to a wider community is essential and we hope to develop an educational program through our webinars and conferences that make a difference, especially to younger professionals. And it is certainly our intent to support the technology firms and member corporations that deliver location intelligent solutions. The market is growing but even in these difficult, economic times, we can all benefit from the wider exposure. You will be hearing more about our partnership in the coming weeks and months.

Wednesday, April 29. 2009

Zillow's iPhone App...and "Make me Move: The offer I can't refuse"

Today, Zillow.com launched their iPhone app and the one thing I can say is that it will probably cause a few Realtors to gasp for air.

Continue reading "Zillow's iPhone App...and "Make me Move: The offer I can't refuse""

Monday, April 27. 2009

Intergraph, KEMA Examine Smart Grid Opportunities from Stimulus

Intergraph and KEMA are both investigating Smart Grid opportunities that are expected to result from economic stimulus funds. Intergraph, a global provider of engineering and geospatial software, and KEMA, a business and technical consultancy for the energy industry, both view the optimization of the operations control center as key to Smart Grid success. In a report released by KEMA, the company believes that of the stimulus money going towards infrastructure that at least 10% will be dedicated to advanced IT programs of which operation control centers will be a major portion. From the report (download; registration required):

KEMA's projection anticipates that a potential disbursement of $16 billion in Smart Grid incentives would act as a catalyst in driving associated Smart Grid projects that are worth $64 billion. The impact of these projects would result in the direct creation of approximately 280,000 new positions across various categories, of which more than 150,000 will be created by the end of 2009. Furthermore, KEMA estimates that nearly 140,000 new direct jobs would persist beyond the Smart Grid deployment as permanent, on-going high-value positions.

Tony DiMarco of Intergraph believes that his company is well positioned to support the growing demand for infrastructure improvements, specifically surrounding Smart Grid, outage management, mobile resource management and field force automation. Intergraph is also hosting a webinar with Stellar Grants to educate utilities on how to obtain Smart Grid stimulus money. In the area of critical infrastructure, Intergraph can also assess the vulnerability of utility networks. DiMarco emphasized that Intergraph is very focused on improving location-based situational awareness for utilities.

Tuesday, April 21. 2009

Podcast: Exploring the Geospatial Lexicon

This week we look at some new and old terms creeping into and out of conversations about location technology. Have you heard about Hybrid GIS or Dislocation Intelligence? What words stay with us and which disappear?


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Missed any podcasts? Want to subscribe via iTunes, Yahoo, etc? Here's the index .

Thursday, April 16. 2009

Assault on Geodemographics and Business GIS

Michael Fassnacht, in an article published by Advertising Age (April 13) entitled, "The Death of Consumer Segmentation," put on a full frontal assault challenging the use of geodemographics and marketing segmentation, and by association business GIS. He references a "well-known fashion retailer" (but doesn't name names) that supposedly spent big bucks on, what I assume, was a desktop mapping system replete with demographics and psychographic data. He makes the following points:

1. "The rather static definition of consumer segments is becoming less
   reliable in our extremely volatile society, especially in today's economic climate. A consumer's lifetime value may have decreased
   significantly in the past six months, a fact not reflected by any segmentation method."
2. "Consumers are never just part of one segment. Rather, they feel, rightfully, that they belong to a multitude of segments. They can be the professional executive in the morning, the boyish sports fan in the evening, the churchgoing father figure on Sunday."
3. "Consumers are gaining more control of any marketing activity...they like to receive relevant information, but even more, they prefer to choose their own relevant information"

He goes on to reference Apple and Amazon that don't bet the farm on market segmentation. "[They] are not masters of consumer segmentation but experts in building relevant products that consumers choose. Their marketing communication is segment-based but does not depend on pursuing an ever-increasing level of micro-segment-specific relevance. They are far more focused on building and communicating relevance relationships than in micro-segmenting consumers."

So, Fassnacht appears to be arguing, not to abandon micro-marketing, but to say that much finer market segmentation may be necessary, and, as he describers, consumers engage in "self-segmentation." I would argue that in our mobile society we are much more geographically disperse and at any given time will be or should be marketed to in both a geospatial and time-relevant context. Hence the boom in location-based advertising. What we as marketers need is a better way of capturing the geographic dispersion of the marketing and the means to target appropriate messages.