Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

In the Web 2.0 world users are acustomed to defining their own Web experiences.  This has left many of the more risk adverse organizations and companies scratching their heads looking for new ways to position and target their content to specific groups of users while not relinquishing too much control (e.g. allowing un-moderating commenting).

For a recent Web client with small sales force embedded on the streets in local markets throughout the country, we proposed positioning unique and specific sales messages to potential customers based on geographic identifiers associated with their IP address. Our client was up for the content management challenge and the functionality was delivered. The feature included the ability for user’s to change their location, in the case that the IP derived location was inaccurate.

Is this a foolproof solution? Are the objections outweighed by the benefits?

Think about how must time could be save and experiences improved if you didn't have to go through one of those "gateway" pages asking you for your country and language preference everytime you wanted to visit a large transnational company or organization's site!