One interesting area for Retail Solutions is the potential to provide data for location-based advertising.

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That is the consensus of mobile media enthusiasts who are using location-based advertising and marketing.

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JiWire, a leader in the space since 2003, pioneered the ad-supported Wi-Fi business model through location-based advertising.

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It was too early to ask her about revenue sources, but the location- and contextual-based advertising opportunities seem obvious.

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The iPhone has been the catalyst of explosive growth in the smartphone market and created an app economy that has sown the seeds of new industries and changed the face of gaming, social communications, location-based services and photography as well as advertising and commerce.

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Siminoff is now adding demographic and location-based variables and looking at a move into advertising on cell phones.

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JiWire is a mobile advertising company that places location-based ads, it calls Compass ads, on mobile apps as well as on Wi-fi service websites in places like cafes.

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The popularity of location-based services and the increasing acceptance of mobile advertising have opened the door to a host of opportunities to draw traffic into stores, such as sending targeted coupons to mobile users based on their location or allowing consumers to check product availability before entering the store.

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Jeremiah Owyang of the Altimeter Group, a consultancy, points out that many marketing executives are still trying to get to grips with advertising on social networks, even though these have been around much longer than the new location-based services and have huge audiences already.

ECONOMIST: Location-based services on mobile phones