Business and Technology – Are Rural Businesses Ready for Location-Based Applications?
I have been reading and hearing a lot about location based apps namely Foursquare and Gowalla. I was even recently asked on Twitter which one I thought was going to be the winner for their user base. Foursquare seems to target more locations within a city, where Gowalla is targeting a larger market, the world with its “Passport” concept for its users. But then I asked myself: Are rural businesses ready for location-based applications?
Living in a small town and having been involved in helping small businesses in a city without traffic lights get online has had its challenges over the years, but it has also shown some significant benefits. I have created websites that have helped small businesses in this city without traffic lights increase sales by up to 800%, with the addition of a well-designed website for their business. I also looked at the local Chamber of Commerce members in my county and other areas and noticed that only 10-15% of local businesses have a website. This is common with rural American businesses, they are slipping down the technology curve: they may not be ready for location-based apps with the benefits in sales and attracting customers from other areas, as many are not even ready. they have a website.
Many small towns and counties actually have very few web giveaways online to share their services or events for the rest of the world to know about. Yes, there has been a change in the digital divide of more bandwidth going out to rural America and the price of computers has come down a lot, but the prices of software and how to use these technical devices to help companies is falling faster and faster. behind the technical curve.
I’ve been a small-town tech person for some time, over fifteen years, and I understand the views of small towns – the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality of business and the views of small cities tends to allow them to think about their local. Newspaper or tabloid advertising is the single best way to get people through your doors. The problem with this form of advertising is often the subscription or print numbers of these newspapers or tabloids, they don’t include how many of them are used to house train puppies or line the bottom of a birdcage and have never been read. But a website can advertise your business to a world economy. Small town businesses often don’t seem to understand this and overlook using a website to help attract more customers.
Therefore, the chance that the places you might travel to in the countryside for your vacations or on your trips will have new locations through Foursquare and Gowalla might be slim. For users or subscribers of these apps, this is a haven for being the “Location Founder” and try to write a good recommendation for these rural business locations. But for businesses in Small Town America, this could be a problem in the future, as they often won’t have a website or even a blog and allow prospective customers to simply cruise down local US roads and highways with no idea what to expect. the possible services or goods that these small town businesses could offer.
They are saying that location-based apps are the new POP (point of purchase) display for businesses that use it. That 6% of viewers stop to buy something they see their friends using or that apps show them to be nearby. This is much larger than the old marketing advertising of about 02% of direct mail advertising or newspaper advertising that they claim to generate.
He added that these services also allow a user to share their location via online social networks like Facebook and Twitter, it’s one of the best advertisements one could ask for – telling all your friends with a line that you like this. comes the gold service. But how much technology is actually used in rural America?
I have a good Facebook list and I know that it is very used in my city. High School Alumni Search is great for finding old classmates and friends around town and many are using it. But I also use Twitter, when I do a search using Twitterlocal for local users, I get ZERO: I am the Twitter Elite of my city with no competition. So my Twitter of local places or events is only good to help bring some of my friends or followers to the events in my city. This is common in small town America, it is quickly falling behind the technical curve, in local business places that do not have a website or are not online to represent their city’s events.
I think these location-based apps, services, or games will be a major up-and-coming advertising venue for businesses of all kinds, but for now, it seems like there are plenty of people and places that need to sign in or highlight places. For example; 34,000 places in New York City alone to eat and neither Foursquare nor Gowalla have that many places there, even with Foursquare located in New York. In writing this, I looked up Chincoteague Island, which sees 35-75,000 people during Pony round, but only showed one post marked Gowalla’s location in Chincoteague and that one was in the graveyard. I’m a big believer in these great innovations, and they’re a big plus within cities, but I really have to wonder if rural businesses and towns are ready for it.
I think this is a significant untapped area for both of these location-based applications and definitely a great possibility for website designers to also gain a large number of clients who might want to take the added benefit of location-based advertising. location through the use of Foursquare. and Gowalla. For now, it will be a challenge to help rural businesses connect, as well as add these services to businesses, tourist attractions, and events in your area. But without a website, adding location-based apps can be a challenge.
With new mobile devices becoming the norm for today’s users, more and more people are turning to smartphones or iPhones for information and using location-based apps like Foursquare.com and Gowalla.com. But is rural America ready for such great innovations? My answer is no; they are still falling behind the technical curve faster and faster.
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