Greetings From Someplace I’ve Never Been and Still Aren’t At… or Geolocation Sucks

Ah, geolocation. Ask just about any marketer: It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. When are we going to admit that geolocation is not very effective? Maybe when more writers and bloggers speak up and say they are sitting at their desk, about 1,200 miles away from the deal that’s reached their computer screen.

My office is in Stamford, CT. I’m on our company’s Overland Park, KS-based server. That’s 1,251 miles if I drive 20 hours four minutes on I-70, or 1,350 miles if I drive 21 hours 25 minutes on I-64.

So these offers designed to drive me into businesses in Overland Park or nearby Kansas City are really not going to be very effective. All they’re going to do is tell me what I already know: Geolocation sucks.

Cyber Monday is such a huge day in e-commerce because people will shop for deals on work time, on the computer they use at work (which has, in most cases, a faster connection than people’s home Internet access). Not everyone works from home or for a small local company. Are marketers figuring that every office has its own server?

Well, in our office, we have people connected not only to Overland Park, but to New York City. At least for those people on the New York server, the geolocated deal is still somewhat local.

Why is this such a hot topic for me… other than all the deals I’m getting out of Overland Park? Well, for one, I got a press release from a company that was all excited that their data was being used by Twitter, which added geolocation as a tool to possibly fend off new mobile services like Foursquare.

And our first tweet with its geolocation service, of course, says it came from “downtown Overland Park.”

Don’t get me wrong, Overland Park. Someone in your fair city has signed my paycheck since 2000, and I’m sure you’re a lovely place to visit should I ever need to hit our corporate office. Plus you have a Waffle House and a Fuddruckers, so I’m not going to starve…

But tell me, people: Why DO marketers think geolocation is the best thing since sliced bread?