Location, Location, Location
Friday, June 23rd, 2006At the start of the Internet revolution, there was a sense that the internet was a separate place. This sentiment was neatly expressed in the name “Cyberspace”.
More recently we have heard about the Virtual Office, On-line Collaboration and all manner of variations on this theme. Many companies and individuals, particularly in niche service industries, are benefitting from technologies that allow them to work together in teams, without ever having to meet in the physical world. My own company uses the services of different specialists from around the world in order to help us to achieve our objectives.
Fantastic.
BUT
What about those business and industries for whom physical location is very important? If I ran a hat hire company based in Cheshire, would I really need customers in Seattle? or for that matter in Lancashire? If I ran a hairdessing salon in Luton, how far would I expect customers to travel? If I ran a Hotel, how could I help people to find where we are?
Location for these types of businesses is critically important.
The good news is there is a rapid emergence of Mapping and Location aware services and search tools, With offerings from the big players, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo. If you’re interested in trying some out - I’ve included some links from our resources page.
So if location is important to your business, you need to plan how your existing internet presence can be made location savvy. In the very near future, people need to be able to find you by searching a map, as well as by text search.
Tags: Cyberspace, Virtual Office, Collaboration, location, Mapping, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo
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