Tracking You At The Mall? There’s An App For That

We’ve been hearing about location-based apps for a while. This one sounds like a big one. From The New York Times:

Major retailers are working with a new smartphone application that tracks and offers promotions to shoppers as they move from outside the store, to counters, to cash registers — even inside the dressing room (now that’s persistence).
The app, called Shopkick, will be available on Tuesday for the iPhone and in the fall for Android phones. And with five major companies supporting it — Macy’s, Best Buy, Sports Authority and American Eagle Outfitters, along with the Simon Property Group, the prominent mall operator — it is getting a big introduction.

I could see this being really successful–but really creepy. If anyone followed you around that much in real life, you’d get a restraining order. But for a discount at a store? No problem.
And my other question is: how many location-based apps will people put up with? Let’s say ShopKick is just the first major one–in addition to others like Forusquare and Gowalla. How many could you have working at once? It won’t take long for this area of marketing to get really crowded, and fast.