Postcode advertising help

[fife]

Hello.  I have a quick question.  In my database I have Business's and members.  I want the business to be able to advertise to members in their local area (lets say within 30 miles) for a cost.  When a member within that distance of the office logs on they see this advert.  Outside this distance they do not.  Obviously the best way to do this is by postcode of the business compared to the member.

 

I'm basically after some advise as I have been all over the internet looking for answers.  First of all is it possible to write this script and what type of functions do I need to learn to do this?  Second of all does anybody know of software that can do this out there already?  I have found some but they are actual written programs with their own GUI that can not be changed to suit my needs.

 

Thank you

[Adam]

This may help you. Basically you need to use longitude and latitude to calculate which postcodes are within what distance of each other; that website actually gives you some of the mathematics behind it as well as downloadable SQL file to import them into a MySQL table. I've not used it myself but looks alright.

 

The only advise I can offer though is that I can't imagine that being frequently updated (article dated from August 2005); meaning newer postcodes won't be in there. To get a regularly updated, dependable data source you'll most likely have to pay for the service.

[fife]

Thank you very much for your help