CBS Mobile & Loopt Bring Location Based Ads to Cell Phones

The New York Times is reporting this morning that CBS will announce the introduction of a new location based ad campaign customized for a person’s location and delivered to their cell phone via CBS Mobile News and CBS Mobile Sports web sites. “Mobile phone users already see ads on Web pages. But with the CBS service, instead of a more or less random banner popping up on the screen, people who have chosen to participate might see an ad from a business in the neighborhood, even one within a block or two.” The experiment is, for now, limited to two carriers that Loopt has signed deals with, Sprint Nextel and Boost Mobile. If it's an opt in service, and the result is no more ads than would normally be displayed, I really wouldn't have objections. Then again, I live in a very small market and it will probably be a very long time before this type of service makes it way here. I also don't subscribe to the privacy concerns of many... I just don't think that anyone is going to be that interested in where I am at any given time.

Ads on your cell phone

Is nothing sacred? Looks like Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and AOL are lining up to serve us ads on our cell phones. With a number of start up purchases and some home grown applications the big guys are seeing big bucks in our small screens. Business 2.0 has the story here.