Is That iPhone In Your Pocket Just Location-Based Ad Bait?

In other words, if you had an iPhone (or really, any smartphone) and advertisers could find you and tell you what deals or events were going in that particular area, would you want to know? Heck, if you want to get into the base models, they could just monitor your location and send you text messages.

With the iPhone’s new app store making it easier for third parties to tap into the phone’s GPS capabilities, it was only a matter of time before advertisers jumped on board. Today, online event tracker Eventful announced plans to work with geotargeting ad network 1020 Placecast to send targeted, location-based ads to its users.

Eventful’s iPhone app locates the user and informs them of events happening nearby. Now Placecast can use the technology to send localized advertising to Eventful users. Placecast will also be sending tailored advertising to users according to zip code searches and other entered data, but it’s the mobile aspect that presents the most potential for advertisers.

Stranded smartphone users are a strangely captive audience. Ads that would go unnoticed online — local restaurants or hardware stores — are exponentially more useful to a person looking for food or a hammer while standing on a street corner.

When advertisers figure out the details, they could score a windfall in mobile by minimizing the intrusion and providing people with something they actually want — useful information.

Researchers Use Facebook App to Create Zombie Army

Facebook is safe, right? Right?

Computer researchers built a tool that demonstrates how hackers could silently turn Facebook users into a powerful zombie army that can attack other websites or scout for vulnerable sites on the net.

All that is necessary to create the Facebook Botnet is to have users choose install a rogue Facebook application written by an outside developer — in this case, one called Photo of the Day. Once the user chooses to install the application, the unsuspecting user is inducted into the hacker’s army and unknowingly follows orders any time he or she logs into Facebook.

Facebook downplayed the attack, saying that any developer that could figure out how to make a successful application would make money other ways.

It Takes Time to Be Great

‘Nuff said:

The great American writer and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson said,

“All the great speakers were bad speakers first.”

You didn’t become a leader overnight. You don’t become a great speaker the first few times you get on stage, either. Don’t be afraid to invest time and effort. It will pay off.

In other words, practice, practice, practice… relish speaking opportunities, join Toastmasters, teach a Sunday school class… do anything that gets you communicating in front of others.

They Are The Problem

I think there is a tendency from birth to rationalize our actions in comparison to those of other people. For example, how many times did you ever say to your parents, “Everybody else is doing it. Why can’t I?” Maybe you did something wrong and you compared it to something that one of your siblings had done in the past. “Well, maybe I did this, but at least I didn’t do THAT.”

As we continue to rationalize our behavior in comparison to these human standards, we miss the standards that we really should be comparing our lives to: the living example of Jesus Christ that is given to us in the Bible.

When residents in Grand Rapids, Michigan, were asked about the bad habits of drivers that made the highways unsafe, most felt that others caused more problems than they themselves. One woman said that she talked on her cell phone a little, but at least she didn’t dial the phone numbers while on the road. She concluded her comments by stating that others “aren’t following the rules of the road . . . . They put us all at risk.”

It’s our nature to point a finger at others. The apostle Paul talked about fellow teachers who avoided looking at their own behavior and instead attacked him (2 Cor. 10:12-18). He wrote, “They, measuring themselves by themselves, . . . are not wise” (v.12).

When we don’t look at our own actions but instead compare ourselves with others, we often come out looking good. But, as Paul said, it’s the Lord’s commendation that counts, not our own approval of ourselves (v.18).