Huh, you say. How can mobile location-based ads be passe - they haven't even arrived yet. ...Two reasons.

The first is that Paul Jacobs says today we think of merging the digital and physical worlds with GPS, but that in the future, where wireless is everywhere (and not just cellular, but local wireless, hyperlocal wireless, personal area wireless, etc) our presence will be sensed by beams as we pass through them. He knows what he's talking about, and if he blasts his own GPS in favor of these other emerging technologies, we should probably listen given that his GPS chips are the most widely deployed location technology in the mobile world.

The second reason is Twitter. I follow these local businesses in my hometown. During peak pedestrian traffic hours, they regularly tweet offers du jour. I know where their storefronts are located. They don't need to know where I'm located. I follow them. They follow me back. If I don't like their tweets, I just unfollow. If I like a tweet offer du jour, I might stop in for a drink or a bite. Or, I can just read the tweet and move on. I decide. There's no charge to the merchants, and only upside for me. My mobile location data is completely irrelevant!

I hope sharing these two reasons help the distracted think through things differently.