PSFK does a great job of investigating some of our motivations for real-time tracking and the growth of the phenomenon in a recent post entitled "Our Obsession with Tracking." In the article, they refer to a recent USA Today article that covers similar ground and even calls America "a nation of track-a-holics":
"Americans love knowing where their things are," says Chris McGlothlin, chief information officer at Domino's. Folks constantly tell Domino's how much they hate not knowing when -- or if -- their pizza will arrive. The Pizza Tracker, used by 75% of Domino's online customers, is an attempt to solve that problem. While current technology also could track the whereabouts of drivers, Domino's won't track that for security reasons.
The article also asserts that our need to track things gives us a sense of control over the world, something which many of us currently feel we need more of. FedEx.com gets over 6 million package tracking requests every day!
Whatever the cause, it is clear that real-time tracking is a key customer support function and business tool for many large companies and brands and will only grow as tracking hardware and software becomes more sophisticated and less expensive.
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