All too often I am speaking in front of a large group and find the need to take a quick poll of the audience. Stopping a presentation to do this is awkward. It interrupts the flow of information and there is just no elegant way of quickly compiling the results.

Enter Poll Everywhere.

They accept SMS messages from the audience to questions posed by YOU and post real time results on their site. A simple solution to a common problem. Genius.

• July 11th is the launch date for the new 3G iPhone.
• July 11th is also the launch date for the App store in iTunes.

From an internet marketing perspective, you should care about this date even if you do not own an iPhone (only a few million of us do at this point).  You should care because the launch date of this new phone is likely to place a renewed emphasis on the GPS chip that is already in many smart phones today.  I’m not giving Apple credit for putting a GPS chip in a cell phone……hardly……but I am giving them credit for putting the tools required to take true advantage of this functionality in the hands of developers.

Keep your eye on the ball.  Here are a few trends to watch:

Geoblogging: location-aware blogging adds a new layer to one’s posts and comments on the internet.

Location-based Advertising (Are we calling this something else yet?): You are in a new city…….say, Seattle…..and you really want a cup ‘o joe.  Power up the GPS enabled cellphone with Google Maps loaded on it and off you go.  Oh yeah….and Google Adsense will be adopted to provide coupons/discounts to those stores closest to you.  Location based advertising will be HUGE.