It is about sharing your intent to do something instead of what you’ve already done -Jyri Engstrom
As a marketer I have always felt geolocation tools were the next great opportunity to grow business, generate leads, and strengthen brand awareness. It was only a matter of time before somebody figured out the fact that tools, like Foursquare and Gowalla, did not capture the most important information for marketers: a consumer’s future plans. That day has arrived with the soon to be launched Ditto.
What is Ditto?
Ditto is an iPhone app built by Co-founder of micro-blogging platform Jaiku and former Google executive Jyri Engstrom. Robert Scoble broke the news about Ditto and summed it up best:
“Foursquare lets you tell friends and businesses where you are. But today Ditto (an iPhone app) lets you tell those same people and businesses where you’ll be.”
Ditto: Leveraging the Future
Here are some of the interesting facts, significant differences, advantages, and benefits of Ditto for marketers:
- Social Objects: unlike Foursquare, Ditto is not just about location. Social Objects according to Jyri are those things we “hang conversations around and pivot around”
- Decision Points: people checking-in on Foursquare have already made their choice. Ditto allows marketers to “catch people before they arrive at a location or decision”
- Discovery: according to Jyri, Ditto is about discovery. “It’s about a book to read, music to play and download, a movie to see, or a restaurant to go to
- Lead Generation: it allows marketers to provide “advanced offers” that may solidify a future check-in
- Competition: unlike Foursquare, Ditto allows marketers to compete for consumers and persuade them to change their decisions about a social object or location. Bring people to your product or service
- Stream: a huge advantage Ditto has over Foursquare is the fact that Ditto allows users to see the stream of their friends and the stream of future check-ins by people they are not connected to in any way. Users can access information of future check-ins by vicinity
- Partnership: Ditto has a syndication deal with Foursquare where upon arrival at a location of your future check-in, once within a predetermined distance, your arrival will be streamed to Foursquare as a Foursquare check-in
