Pssst! There’s a sale happening at the Mango store just down the road from you! Soon, you may get notified about happening events to be at via your cell phone. Radio/TV network CBS has reportedly partnered with Loopt, a social-mapping service. Together, they plan to launch a location-based mobile advertising service.
Before we get into the nuances of this agreement which claims to be the first of its kind, here’s a little something about each of the partnering companies. Loopt’s social mapping service was developed by a Palo Alto-based startup, and uses GPS capabilities, allowing users to share their location and status messages, send proximity-based messages and even view geo-tagged photos and content while they are on-the-go.
As for CBS, well everyone knows that it is a broadcast company that has moved far beyond just television and into film production and the mobile arena as well.
The new service will see users of CBS Mobile Sports and CBS Mobile News, served with ads based on their location using Loopt’s GPS technology.
For instance, the advertisements could direct a user of one of the mobile sites to a specific restaurant, café or theatre that they are walking by.
According to CBS Mobile executive VP Cyriac Roeding, “Location-based advertising is the sweet-plot in mobile marketing. Through our partnership with Loopt, our advertisers will be able to deliver targeted messages to potential customers who, based on their location, might be very likely to click or make a purchase.”
As of now, it is known that the service will be restricted to users of carriers that have deals with Loopt, which currently only seem to be Sprint Nextel and the Boost Mobile MVNO.
The service is scheduled to be launched in Q2 2008. You can definitely expect more announcements regarding this service from Loopt in the months to come.