MODx as a contact database and "experience management"

Geez... so in PHP if you use sessions, this ultimately relies on cookies to identify the session.

PHP can be configured to pass the session ID in the URL query string instead, although that makes it easily visible to anyone snooping on the exchange. If you were a bit paranoid, you could pass a random string, then in your code convert that string into the real session ID string and start the session from that.

Google is hard at work on this right now.

You better believe it! Some relevant quotes from Eric Schmidt:

I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.

we know roughly who you are, roughly what you care about, roughly who your friends are.

If I look at enough of your messaging and your location, and use Artificial Intelligence, we can predict where you are going to go

Also, good point, I had forgotten about the European cookie laws. I don’t do any tracking on my international site, the site that does marketing automation operates only in the US.

you have to tell users explicitly what cookies are set and for what purposes, and visitors have to opt-in to allowing you to track them.

In that case maybe using OpenID would be the best way to do it after all -- that way you’re only tracking people if they choose to log in, which you could probably argue constitutes consent especially if you tell them you’re doing it when they first log in.

Quote from: sharkbait at Aug 09, 2011, 03:13 AM

I pointed my phone at a box of granola bars and Google offered me the ingredients, RDA info, prices at nearby stores and by mail order, history of the product, and coupons. Mind you, I didn’t point it at the UPC code, which is also an option -- Google recognized the art on the box.

seriously, that works??

Absolutely, but it can’t yet recognize a pair of glasses or a cat -- no doubt that will come. It will be interesting from a crime standpoint when you can point your phone at a house and learn who lives there, what they earn, their daily schedule, their current location, and what possessions are in the house.