How smart is your phone?

Smart phones are the answer to an advertiser's prayer. Each application you download and each site you visit become part of your profile information. Which in turn helps companies target specific products and services to an interested set of consumers. The recent New York Times article on how smart phones are being used to generate user profiles can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/business/media/11target.html?_r=1&ref=media

Spielberg's Minority Report doesn't seem like that much of a stretch of imagination now, does it? The mall scene is one of my favorites in the movie. So here's a peek.




Obviously, this raises questions about privacy. But it is a gold-mine for any advertiser on any part of planet Earth. The more data they procure, the more focused their ad spend becomes. Which of course translates to a greater ROI. Like it or not, consumer profiling from smartphones is here to stay. As for the interactive ads and the eye-scans bugging Tom Cruise as depicted in the above scene...well, let's just say that nothing is impossible.