Jody Haneke, president of Haneke Design, was interviewed by Peter Radizeski for his TMC blog, On Rad’s Radar. Radizeski wanted Haneke’s insights into Groupon and similar mobile coupon offerings, as well as what it means now that AT&T is getting into the space with its Shop Alerts.

When it comes to location-based services, Haneke believes they have a place, but in more of a proactive sense for when people are out and about and looking for what is around them. Haneke said he prefers location-based offers and deals to be geared towards discovery – allowing people to search what’s around them, so maybe they discover something they didn’t know was there – versus an alert telling a user what they might like, when in fact that alert doesn’t match their interests at all.

When it comes to AT&T getting into the space, Haneke thinks everyone is looking for a way to utilize business directories and jump on that bandwagon of mobile couponing because it is so popular. He added that AT&T also has the ability to leverage location based services on mobile devices to reach people while they are out and about.

Both Haneke and Radizeski agreed that where all these mobile couponing services are missing the mark is when it comes to letting users personalize the deals they receive, so they are coming from businesses they prefer. Text messages or push notifications can be viewed as a very intrusive type of communication, particularly in the case where alerts are based primarily on location and not preference; users may view it as spam. If that is the case, you may see consumer backlash in the form of users opting out.

Listen to full podcast here and read more from Radizeski at his On Rad’s Radar blog.