Google White Space Push Represents A White Hot Opportunity

I have discussed how big of an opportunity White Space represents for U.S. consumers and the economy.

Google again yesterday presented many reasons why white spaces offers "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to provide ubiquitous wireless broadband access to all Americans."

On Google's Public Policy blog, Rick Whitt highlights Larry Page's White Space WiFi on Steroids

"Wi-fi on steriods." That's one of the many potential uses for the wireless spectrum that is now lying unused between TV channels, our co-founder Larry Page told the New America Foundation here in DC this morning.

Larry said:

Utilizing the unused TV "white spaces" for broadband access would be a tremendous opportunity to bring the Internet to more Americans -- including those in rural areas and first responders. Because of the much longer range of these spectrum signals, wireless broadband access utilizing the TV white spaces could be brought to more consumers using fewer base stations -- in effect, "wi-fi on steriods".

Larry noted that the FCC process will guarantee that no device is sold to consumers until it can be certified not to interfere -- a point often lost in this debate. He said he is "100 percent confident" that the white spaces will be used for Internet access -- it's just a question of when. And when that happens, many different companies will likely invest millions of dollars to develop innovative devices that don't interfere. But the FCC allowing this innovation to happen is a necessary first step.

Visionary Innovations uncovered a small company with modulation techniques (and over $200m in VC funding from Cisco, SBC Communications, US Venture Partners, ComVentures along with $100m from US Govt) that is positioning themselves to be the "Qualcomm of 700MHz and White Space" (modulating standard).

The report is titled "White Space Represents A White Hot Opportunity"

Could Eyeballs And Advertising Be Shifting Back To The TV?....Who Wins, Who Loses?

A subtle transformation is taking place.

The company or service that is able to monitor all of your broadband pipe activity, and deliver dynamic ads to any device connected to it, is your Next Google

The same day Netflix announces a set-top box for digital downloads, Comcast announces an investment in a startup that delivers high-definition video using file-sharing techniques.

The big news yesterday, in my opinion, is that cable operators can now get aggregated census level on demand television data.

The ability to quickly process and report on more than 36 billion transactions annually from thousands of different sources in near-real time, provide cable operators and advertisers with very powerful tools.

The ability to collect data, second-by-second, from all services/devices connected to a broadband pipe and deliver relevant dynamic advertising to ANY display is the holy grail for Internet advertising.

Mobile IM Is Expected To Be The Next Killer App

C/Net has a story called SMS On The Rise, Mobile IM Expected To Be Next Killer App

Despite the continued growth of SMS usage, however, Gartner expects growth rates to slow as direct mobile connections are becoming increasingly cannibalized by mobile IM communities and social network portals.

What company has already made their presence with a platform on the cell phone?

What company has a foothold in both the PC and the cell phone?

What company has a media conglomerate to provide endless consumer applications?

Quietly this company gained a foothold on over 20 million cell phones and they are sitting on a mobile search platform.

Find out what company and service already has this "killer app".

p.s. They might be for sale soon too.

Convergence Or Physical World Connection?

ClickZ has a neat story called Convergence: It's Back

Jeremy describes converge as "the long-projected (but not yet realized) era of ubiquitous computing -- a world where computing devices are everywhere and all connected to the same network".

The Web has taught people to expect information at their fingertips. E-commerce has forever changed the way people shop and the way that they make purchase decisions. And demand is clearly already there for e-tailing to make the leap to brick-and-mortar retail.

A BusinessWeek poll late last year found that 61 percent of people want to be able to scan a product barcode with their camera phone to receive information on other stores' prices.

He calls it convergence, I call it Physical World Connection.

Convergence comes when mobile device is able to retrieve any type of information from a physical object through the Internet and a machine readable identifier.

When a bar code, an image, speech, a sound, a GPS location, an RFID tag etc can act as a "physical world hyperlink" using a mobile phone, that is when Web 2.0 begins.

Pondering Primate And Team Monkee Do Off To Race In IronMan Florida 70.3

Team Monkee Do is off to participate in Ford's IronMan Florida 70.3 race Sunday May 18.

The race consists of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and a 13.3 mile run.

Monkee Do (Scott Shaffer) is racing with bib number 993.

Follow the race live on IronMan Live

Monkee Do announced this week a unique awareness and fundraising project for childhood obesity called The Do Tag Project

DARPA's Hits And Misses...What's Next?

Besides the Internet, GPS, speech recognition and stealth planes, DARPA has created some very disruptive technologies.

New Scientist has a great summary of the hits and misses from DARPA over the last 50 years.

They also include what is on DARPA's a list of ones to watch too.

BeeTagg Mobile Bar Code App Now Available For iPhone

The new BeeTagg Multicode Reader (BeeTagg, QR Code, Datamatrix) is now available for Apple iPhone.

BeeTagg Multicode Reader is available for download in the BeeTagg Labs. It supports BeeTagg, QR Code and Datamatrix Code Formats:

Top Ten Tech Trends At Churchill Club

Barron's Tech Trader Daily has a nice summary of the Top 10 Tech Trends discussed at the Churchill Club.

Some of the greatest thinkers and venture capitalists gave their opinions.

* Steve Jurvetson, Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
* Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures.
* Josh Kopelman, First Round Capital.
* Roger McNamee, Elevation Partners.
* Joe Schoendorf, Accel Partners.
* Tony Perkins, of Always On, is the moderator.

Some highlights I found of interest.

From Roger McNamee: Betting on smart phones: The mobile device migration to smart phones from features phones will produce even greater disruption than PC industry moving from character mode to graphical interface.

From Vinod Knosla: Projectors in cell phones in next two years. More than one camera per cell phone; high priority for Texas Instruments. Critical ingredient is high speed networks, which we will have in next 2-3 years.

In 4-5 years will have production proof that can sell biofuel at well below $2 a gallon at today’s tax structure and no subsidy. Can’t imagine how big oil can stay in business if that is an alternative. Zero land needed to replace 100% of our gasoline.

From Joe Schoendorf: Water tech will replace global warming as a global priority.
Khosla says in 25-30 years, water will be rarer commodity than oil, and more valuable. Khosla says he is invested in two water companies, and looking for more. Schoendorf notes that T. Boone Pickens is selling oil companies and buying water companies.

McNamee: Massive shift in Internet traffic from PCs to smaller devices. Within 10 years, more Internet traffic from your person than all other locations put together. Maybe actually more transaction, as opposed to bits, he corrects, given HD video traffic over the Internet at home.

For Barron's complete summary.

Android Scan Connnects Bar Codes To Internet Using Camera Phone

Congrats to Jeffrey Sharkey and his Android Scan for being one of the Android Developer Challenge winners.

Scan is an Android application that finds pricing and metadata for anything with a barcode. Just point your phone at a barcode and scan it.

Here are some key features that make Scan stand out:

- Automatic barcode recognition using onboard phone camera using ZXing
- Shows CD, DVD, or book cover along with detailed reviews from Amazon.com
- Searches over a dozen stores, both online and brick+mortar
Highlights brick+mortar stores that are nearby, with option to call the store or get directions
- Links to online storefronts to buy online from the phone
- Tracklisting for CDs, along with option to play sample tracks right on phone
- For books, searches local libraries to see if they have a copy



For more info on Android Scan

23half's Thrrum Uses Image Recognition For Mobile Marketing

23half Inc., a pioneer of technologies that extend the functionality of camera phones, announced the launch of Thrrum MMS Search.

Thrrum MMS Search brings together visual recognition technologies and
information search in the context of camera phones

Thrrum MMS Search enables camera phone users to find and browse information related to their physical environment using the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) integrated into their phones.

Users can capture a picture of any text with their camera phone and send the picture as an MMS to m@thrrum.com. Relevant search results are then sent to the users' phones.

The Thrrum MMS Search service is presently in beta and is available free of charge to AT&T wireless subscribers in the United States.

Corporations Fail To Budget For Upcoming Bandwidth Boom

Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch and of IT Doesn't Matter states the information technology (IT) departments won't matter in the next few years as computing takes place on the Net, versus on the PC.

Will corporations be prepared for the upcoming bandwidth boom?

Enterprise bandwidth requirements will more than double in the next five years, yet budgets will only increase by five per cent, according to a survey released today.

The research, carried out by Omniboss - a division of market analysis firm Vanson Bourne - among 100 senior IT decision makers found a further one in five executives thought their bandwidth requirements were likely to grow by 150 per cent or more.

Nearly one third (30 per cent) believed voice over internet protocol (VoIP) and converging voice, data and multimedia technologies such as video on demand would also have a significant effect on traffic in the future.

What Does The Next Google Look LIke?

Google is so big for consumers and advertisers because they are great at delivering targeted ads along side randomly desired content on the Internet. What if there was an application that could do that on the TV.

Time shifted viewing and the TiVo (DVR) are disrupting TV viewing. More eyeballs leave TV, advertisers need a dynamic service for digital video recorders (dvrs).

The NY Times asks With TiVo and the Web, what is prime time?

there has been a sharp increase in time-shifting

Some of the six million (drop in recorded viewers) are still watching, but on their own terms, thanks to TiVos and other digital video recorders, streaming video on the Internet, and cable video on demand offerings. So while overall usage of television is steady, the linear broadcasts favored by advertisers are in decline.

Dan Tynan from PC World listed "time shifted viewing + digital video recorder" as one of his top 10 Disruptive Technology Combinations.

To quote the CEO of the Next Google.

" the ability to report actual anonymous second-by-second program and advertising audience viewership data from tens of millions of set top boxes (STB)s represents a huge technological and informational leap from today's television measurement standard"

What does the Next Google look like?

The most powerful Google Analytics machine sits in your house and is the Next Google.

The Next Google will be able to collect data, second-by-second, from all services/devices connected to the broadband pipe and deliver relevant dynamic advertising to ANY display

The Next Google is able to dynamic targeted advertising while desired content is being delivered regardless of the device or time watched.

The Next Google will be able to analyze all content coming in and out of our "pipe", from ALL devices, whether it is used actively or passively and deliver targeted ads to all devices connected to this pipe.

Do you know who does all of this?

Wapple Links Print Ads To Internet Using Mobile Bar Codes

Add Wapple to the list of companies that enable physical objects to be connected to the Net using a camera phone (Physical World Connection).

Wapple customers can now generate print mobile barcodes that link to their mobile internet sites.

Each site* built with Wapple Canvas™ automatically produces its own unique datamatrix and QR codes, in fact each page on every single site will generate its own datamatrix and QR codes.

Most emerging devices come with a scanner built in. Alternatively it's no big deal for anyone to download one - to download a reader for your phone, please visit m.augme.com on your mobile handset or visit the website: http://augme.com.

The Big Switch...A Great Read

The Big Switch by Nicholas Carr does a great job of explaining how the real growth in computing is shifting from the PC to the Internet. The PC is becoming less important as the "processor".

This month's Wired magazine has a great quote from Amazon's Jeff Bezos that summarizes what Nicholas conveys.

Utility computing is Web 2.0's version of rocket fuel. "You don't generate your own electricity," Bezos says. "Why generate your own computing?" The forces driving online apps — Internet bandwidth and reliability — also mean that, in terms of data per dollar, servers in your closet or colocation facility can't compete with industrial-scale bits piped in from hundreds, even thousands, of miles away.


Intro to The Big Switch.

A hundred years ago, companies stopped generating their own power with steam engines and dynamos and plugged into the newly built electric grid. The cheap power pumped out by electric utilities didn’t just change how businesses operate. It set off a chain reaction of economic and social transformations that brought the modern world into existence.

Today, a similar revolution is under way. Hooked up to the Internet’s global computing grid, massive information-processing plants have begun pumping data and software code into our homes and businesses. This time, it’s computing that’s turning into a utility.

Apple One Step Closer To Physical World Connection Domination

Apple one step closer to a mobile marketing powerhouse.

The big story here isn't that an airport scanner resolved a 2d bar code on an iPhone.

The big picture is that the iPhone with an iTunes browser represent the opportunity to connect the physical world with the Net using a mobile device that has an established billing platform. Powerful.

iPhone As Electronic Boarding Pass

Gerald Buckley tells how he was allowed to board an American Airlines flight from San Antonio to Dallas by having the gate agent scan the bar code of the ticket on a PDF displayed on his iPhone (this is an addition to the TSA official verifying a paper boarding pass).

A couple years ago I said that Apple could turn into a mobile marketing and mcommerce powerhouse if they introduced an iPod cell phone. (Who knew about the iPhone then).

Apple could provide the billing platform for all types of mobile content (songs, coupons, tickets etc).....and yes airplane tickets.

How could it be so powerful?

Billing method is already resolved, and the iTunes platform is so easy to use.

Think about it. Go to iTunes, download a ticket for Jimmey Buffet concert and get a 2d code, barcode on your iPod or iPhone. The billing is ALREADY IN PLACE and you just wave your iPod or iPhone at the door.

Did you ever consider what would happen if Apple introduced an iTunes browser?

When Apple introduces a mobile bar code scanning application on the iPhone, they will become a mobile marketing powerhouse.

Some other ponderings about Apple and physical world connection possibilities.

Lufthansa Launches Mobile Barcode Boarding Passes

From Just The Flight Lufthansa Launches Mobile Boarding Passes

German airline Lufthansa has announced a new service that allows passengers to use their mobile phones to access electronic boarding passes.

While the scheme is currently only available for those traveling from Hamburg to Munich or Frankfurt, it is hoped that it will be rolled out further if it proves successful.

The service sees flyers who check in online and select the option to do so being sent a boarding pass via email or SMS to their internet-enabled handsets. These passes include information such as passenger name, flight number and a 2D barcode.

SnapTell And Men's Health Magazine Create Mobile Image Recognition Campaign

SnapTell getting lots of press lately.

Soon every magazine will "turn on" their ads and offer more info simply by taking a picture and sending an MMS.

Mobile image recognition is probably the easiest way for print media to generate more interaction with a reader and get more bang of the advertising buck.

Men’s Health, the largest men’s lifestyle magazine brand in the world, has partnered with SnapTell, the leading provider of image recognition-based mobile marketing solutions, to create the first fully interactive advertising magazine in America.

Men’s Health’s July/August summer issue, hitting newsstands June 24, will feature enabled or “live” ads for readers to receive real-time promotional information from advertisers.

Using SnapTell’s Snap.Send.Get mobile marketing technology, readers will snap a photo of any advertisement in the issue with their cell phone or photo-enabled mobile device to send (or short code) to SnapTell, where an immediate promotional bounce-back will be sent to their phone.

Other ponderings on SnapTell

Selling The City Using Mobile Barcodes

Manchester Art Gallery and Marketing Manchester are looking at using QR codes to deliver information to visitors and potential clients respectively.

Manchester Art Gallery is trialling the technology, as part of its year-long Revealing Histories: Remembering Slavery gallery trail. It is displaying the codes next to six objects on the trail. Users are taken to a mobile web page with information specifically about that object.

The trial has a couple of months left to run and the gallery is still in the process of evaluating how it might use QR codes in the future. So far Wetterberg says the response has been very positive. The gallery is also looking at using QR codes to capture visitor feedback and as a wider marketing tool. Meanwhile, Marketing Manchester is in talks with online marketing company Brand Attention about running its own three-month trial, which would start in July

MyClick Signs Mobile Image Recognition Deal With Pepsi

MyClick's patented photo recognition technology, not bar codes, opens up a world of opportunities for mobile marketing.

From Washington post MyClick Signs Mobile Image Recognition Deal With Pepsi

Two-year old Hong Kong company MyClick, an image recognition mobile marketing firm as it calls itself, that it has signed a deal with Pepsi to create an advertising campaign for it in China, aimed at 12-24 year olds.

MyClick

MyClick's technology works much like mobile barcodes, but instead of consumers snapping a picture of a 2D barcode, or QR code, they take a picture of any image?such as a logo, or a photograph?that is bordered by a MyClick frame.

MyClick's frame acts much as a 2D barcode, sending users to a specially created mobile web site for more information, or downloads. Pepsi is using MyClick in its latest promotional contest where consumers are being asked to create a profile on any of China's six major online portals for a chance to appear on Pepsi cans, which will come out during the Summer Olympics.

MyMedia is apparently doing quite well for itself in China, having already racked up an impressive number of campaigns with big international brands, including Coca Cola, Motorola, Estee Lauder, Northwest Airlines, Adidas and Pizza Hut among others.

Images are free for users to click on as well as the airtime on the web site that consumers are sent to. Advertisers pay MyMedia per click, which then splits the revenue with the carrier.

The CueCat Doesn't Seem So Dumb Now

Was connecting the physical world to the Net a dumb idea, or the CueCat device?

When barcodes can be scanned using a camera phone (Physical World Connection), billions of URLS get added to the Internet database, hundreds of billions of physical objects become become "physical websites".

Pay per click morphs into "pay per scan" and brands are able to interact with a consumer anywhere and anytime via mobile phone.

Kelson has an interesting story about barcodes, the CueCat and Physical World Connection called Linking The Real And Virtual.

Was the CueCat ahead of its time?

CueCat was a single-purpose device that scanned barcodes and was tied to the desktop.

There has been plenty of discussion of the CueCat being a dumb idea. The device might be considered dumb, but the idea of linking any physical object to the Internet could be a multi-billion dollar opportunity....not so dumb.

LTE Versus WiMax ..Mobile Showdown Ahead

Long-Term Evolution (LTE) has taken another step toward long-term stability. Seven major telecommunications companies announced Monday that they have reached an agreement on a mutual framework for licensing intellectual-property rights relating to 3GPP LTE, the next step after 3G in the evolution of mobile-phone technology.

The vendors are Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, NEC, NextWave Wireless, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks, and Sony Ericsson.

The companies have ironed out a framework they say sets up fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory licensing for LTE technology that sets an single-digit percentage royalty (or, in the case of notebook computers, a fee under $10) on gear using LTE technology which handles all licensing issues for components of LTE technology. With a standardized royalty framework, LTE is more likely to receive backing from the mobile industry, including mobile operators and device manufacturers

Notebooks with embedded LTE will pay a combined maximum royalty in the single digits. For handsets, the single-digit royalty will be a percentage of the sales price.

LTE offers wireless broadband speeds around 100 Mbps and scales well for huge amounts of traffic. The first LTE networks are being rolled out in the US and China.

LTE is a faster and more long distance wireless system compared to 3G.

The wireless industry generally expected LTE technology to be adopted by a wide majority of the world's wireless operators, and in North America Verizon has already announced it plans to use its recent 700 MHz spectrum licenses to roll out LTE-based services in the United States.

However, the first LTE networks aren't expected to be available to consumers for a couple years, and many operators may wait even longer. In the meantime, Sprint is pushing ahead with competing WiMax technology; despite rolling back the launch of its nationwide WiMax service Xohm, WiMax technology is available now, giving it a leading edge on LTE.

My thoughts:
AT&T and VZ have grabbed a bunch of 700 MHz spectrum which threatens Sprint's WiMax.
Sprint/Clearwire won't have roaming or interoperating ability with T and VZ and they will now have the most spectrum. If Comcast and Time Warner commit to pushing WiMax it could get legs, but industry experts are becoming less encouraged with adoption.

Aviation Broadband Ready For Takeoff In The U.S.

Aircell one step closer to its goal of bringing inflight mobile broadband connectivity to airline passengers. Aircell is doing a great job of building the infrastructure for the aviation broadband industry, but will it be enough?

Aircell's internet service is expected to offer 2 Mbps speeds to customers.

Harris Corp, a large communications equipment supplier to the FAA, just announced their aviation broadband solution with speeds up to 35 Mbps per plane at this aviation conference.

Is Aircell doing the heavy lifting for Harris?

Aircell Receives Two FAA Approvals Needed for Inflight Mobile Broadband

The two approvals include a STC (supplemental type certificate), permitting installation and operation of the company's ATG (air-to-ground) network on commercially operated B-767-200s, and a PMA (parts manufacture approval) that authorizes the manufacture of aircraft parts at Aircell's Bensenville, Illinois, facility.

The important approvals follow Aircell's completion of its nationwide wireless ATG network in January and a demonstration flight across the U.S. at the end of March to show its operational readiness.

Aircell and American Airlines completed the installation of ATG technology on a commercial aircraft in January, and American is now completing the equipment installations on its remaining 14 B-767s which are expected to go live sometime this summer.

This high-speed broadband Internet service is made possible by AirCell's unique air-to-ground network, which uses the latest technology to transmit and receive data between the ground and the aircraft. Speeds will be similar to what you experience in your home or office with DSL.

More on aviation broadband.

Pondering Primate And Team Monkee Do Off To IronMan Arizona

It's IronMan triathlon racing season time again.

Representing Team Monkee Do, I am headed out to Tempe for year's IronMan Arizona race on Sunday April 13, 2008.

Follow the action live at www.ironmanlive.com.
Bib number 1174

I-Nigma Uses Mobile Bar Codes To Help Retailers

We are starting to see major publications discuss Physical World Connection (mobile phones and bar codes) on a daily basis. This is a good sign for this space.

From Washington Post Expand Your Empire

The coolest ad technologies aren't the ones that cost the most--they're the ones that engage users. (It's all about offering some type of content in return for permission to advertise on the phone)

Bar Codes With Extra InfoWhile you may think of "airline check-in" or "mail tracking" when you see the black-and-white squiggles that make up QR, or "Quick Response" codes, these 2-D data matrices are beginning to find their place in advertising.

One QR campaign developed for the clothing industry by Philip Warbasse, founder of Los Angeles-based Warbasse Design, puts the codes on in-store apparel that allows shoppers to purchase sizes not in stock--right on their phones. The codes also offer customers a same-day in-store coupon, and other codes in the campaign help upsell the customer with a discount on a second item in the store if they buy it the same day.

Since QR codes cost essentially nothing to produce, go create your own and download a reader for your phone while you're at it from i-nigma. You can create simple promotions like coupons inexpensively and quickly. One caveat is making sure your promotion will appear on customers' phones as you intend it to, which means hiring someone with mobile design experience if you're offering anything other than a plain-text promotion

MobileDiscovery GetsFailing Grade For Case Western's Mobile Bar Code Trial

In parts of Asia and Europe, marketers have been using bar code technology to help sell things to people on their cellphones. There have been a few small-scale tests, but judging from the experience of one under way at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, the technique is nowhere near ready for widespread use.

Considering this was the first major trial for Physical World Connection, the marketing guys at MobileDiscovery dropped the ball big time. (Jonathan Bulkeley, CEO of ScanBuy, informed me that they had nothing to do with the marketing of this campaign)

In my opinion, advertisers are failing to grasp how big Physical World Connection (bar codes and mobile phones) is and how to implement it. Mobile bar codes can link a brand directly with a consumer immediately.

This Case Western campaign is lacking any creativity and focuses on the benefits for advertisers and carriers, not the consumers. A big mistake.


From the N.Y. Times Bar Code Sales Tool Failing

A company called Mobile Discovery, based in Reston, Va., is conducting the test at Case in conjunction with the university’s engineering school, whose students are helping to manage it. Students and other people affiliated with the university can download software to their cellphones and then can get campus bus arrival times, order magazine subscriptions, enter a sweepstakes sponsored by QVC and get text alerts from USA Today, among other applications. (they couldn't find a more hip publication than USA Today to participate? how many college kids read USA Today?)

They are also called free sweepstakes for a reason.

Interest in the pilot project, which started Feb. 1 and will run at least through May 15, has been tepid, according to students on campus, in part because of the cellphone fees associated with it. (It costs 2 cents or more to check when the next shuttle bus arrives, for instance.)

It's ridiculous to make consumers pay for this type of advertising.

Five phone carriers, including Sprint and AT&T, were cooperating in the trial — but not contributing money for it.

If you want to see mass adoption of this technology, carriers need to turn off the meter for a bit and see who and how consumers scan mobile bar codes. Think of this as an R/D expense for the next generation advertising model. The revenues will come but first you need to let early adopters (the targeted demographic) decide HOW and WHAT they want to use it for.

According to Ms. Dietz of the campus paper, the biggest downside of the Mobile Discovery trial is that the technology is not free.

QVC, the shopping network, introduced a campaign last month called Make It or Break It, inviting participants in the trial to create codes on mobilediscovery.com, then post them around campus for others to scan. Each scan gives the student an entry into a QVC sweepstakes, increasing the chance of winning a prize.

Jeffrey Charney, a QVC marketing director said, “Bar codes are the next killer app,”.

I think that is true, but in this case QVC is relying on the consumer to create the codes. A very bad idea. That will only work AFTER it gets traction.

So far, the most popular use of the technology at Case has been real-time arrival information for campus buses, called Greenies.

This is actually beneficial to the consumer. They get timely information when scanning a code. If you want to combine ads with the bus schedule that would work.

To get rapid adoption of the scanning application on the phone, you need to find a captive audience and include a contest. Did anyone think of a Case Western sporting event? In an arena, or stadium your have hundreds or thousands of people looking at the scoreboard during the game. A simple "send a text to XXXXX to get your EZCode" would work. Include a couple EZCodes in the program for people to scan to win a free Coke etc.

Did the marketing guys talk to any of the local retailers? Are there any campaigns that require a consumer to scan the same code to promote ease of use? Are there any time sensitive campaigns? Any viral ideas?

“Students don’t perceive it as practical,” Ms. Vermeersch said. “Why would anyone actually pay for advertising?”.
They won't. The key point is to give the consumer something in return for permission to advertise on the phone.

The software being used in the Case pilot project, EZcode, was developed by Scanbuy, a mobile marketing company that is conducting a separate trial involving restaurants and other stores in its home city, San Francisco.

Did the marketing guys think of placing a notice in the daily school paper on how to download the EZCode software application?

Outside of a couple sweepstakes, what other goods/info were offered?

This was the first major trial of Physical World Connection in the US. The lack of creativity is very disappointing.

Next generation technology should have next generation marketing vision directing it.

AT&T Uses Mobot's Image Recognition For Mobile Marketing

Until all camera phones can scan 1d bar codes, or there is a standard 2d bar code, images will do just fine.

Instead of using bar codes, AT&T (and others) decide to make it easy for consumers and just use images. Take a picture of an ad, book cover, DVD and send via MMS for more information.

AT&T has quietly agreed to support a marketing service that lets advertisers design mobile phone campaigns that link two-dimensional print ads, billboards and product packaging with interactive digital media.

Other U.S. carriers--Verizon and T-Mobile--are expected to follow suit, according to sources close to the project.

The service relies on an ordinary cell phone with photo capability and sophisticated image recognition software designed by Mobot, a mobile visual search company in Lexington, Mass. Consumers take a picture of any traditional two-dimensional ad, product package, or logo and send it by multimedia message (MMS) or a picture message to Mobot.

Scientists at MIT and the University of British Columbia, among others, developed the image-recognition technology that Mobot founder and CEO Russell Gocht licensed to develop the advertising platform.

Here's how the image recognition space stands. Google acquired Neven Vision and Microsoft has their own application called Lincoln.

I'm glad to see that AT&T (and others) are choosing to go with a smaller player like Mobot, rather than team up with the bigger image recognition players. But I wonder, could that be due to intellectual property issues?

Pondering Primate readers should be very familiar with Mobot.

Over a year ago Mobot was acquired by a mobile marketing company for approximately $10m. My company, Visionary Innovations, was instrumental in what was called, "The Marketing Wedding of the Year".

In December 2006, the acquiring company sold Mobot back to its founders.
Here's why Mobot was sold back.

History of Mobot on the Pondering Primate.

Amazon's TextBuyIt Disrupts Physical World Retailing

I'm surprised it took this long to introduce this. Physical retailers will have to get used to price comparisons AND purchases made from online competitors in their store.

What can physical retailers do in order to provide value?

Until camera phones can scan a barcode, or resolve an image on a book cover, Amazon's TextBuyIt mobile application will disrupt physical book store retailers.

From Fox News Amazon Launches TextBuyIt

In less than a minute and using only text messages, Amazon.com customers can find the product they are looking for and complete a purchase using TextBuyIt.

Simply send a text message to "AMAZON" (262966) with the name of the product, search term or a UPC or ISBN code, and, within seconds, Amazon replies with the product or products that match the search, along with prices.

To buy an item, customers simply reply to the text message by entering the unique single digit number next to the item they want. Customers will then receive a short phone call from Amazon with the final details of their order and asking them to confirm or cancel the purchase.


When customers choose to purchase something for the first time using TextBuyIt, they will be asked for their e-mail address and shipping ZIP code they use for their Amazon.com account. With this information, Amazon uses customers' default settings for payment method, shipping address and shipping speed, including 2-Day shipping for Amazon Prime members.