Keen On… Don Dodge: Why Indoor Location Is The Next Big Thing [TCTV]

Don Dodge is well known to longtime TechCrunch readers. Dodge was the guy who Mike Arrington turned into a bit of a martyr after he got unceremoniously fired by Microsoft back in November 2009. Indeed, as Dodge told me last week backstage at Disrupt, it was Mike’s very public attack on Microsoft which lead to Google immediately hiring Dodge as their developer evangelist, a position he still holds today. Microsoft’s embarrassing loss was, of course, Google’s gain and Dodge remains one of the most accessible and nicest guys in our industry. But he’s not just a pretty face. Dodge’s Next Big Thing blog is always an incisive read and, as he told me at Disrupt, he sees indoor location as the most exciting innovation on the horizon. Start-ups like WiFiSLAM and TheTapLab (both Dodge investments), he told me, are merging physical and e-commerce and enabling merchants to know the exact location of their customers. So the next time you are in the organic grocery department of your local store and an irresistible offer for organic broccoli pops up on your smartphone, thank Don Dodge.