A idea I have created, could allow this quickly.
Who has 75 million, ideal demographic users and one of the most visited sites on the Internet?
The owner of this site may be hooking up with a search engine, but has he ever thought of really leveraging this powerful portal?
Rupert, here's what you do.
Provide a free 2d code generating application on the MySpace home page. Call it MyCode or something catchy.
Let the users create codes for URLs, text messages, phone numbers (and I'm sure the kids will find other innovative ideas).
Find a 2d code scanning application for a camera phone that is compatible with as many phones as possible. There's your service provider opportunity..hint hint.
Put up a little summary on MySpace what can be done with a camera phone and 2d code.
Now let the kids/users decide what they want to click on, don't force mobile advertising down their throats.
With 75 million potential users, the MyCode could become the standard 2d code.
Here's the key.
Advertisers will cater to these users and put the MyCode on their advertising.Instead of having consumers download a code scanning app to win some free fries, the advertiser can place a MyCode on THEIR advertising to get interest.
Let advertisers adapt to consumers, not the other way around.
MySpace then sells codes and marketing campaign ideas to advertisers.
I spent 6 months asking teens what they wanted to do with their cell phone.
In my opinion, you're going to have to give away a truckload of french fries to make PWC work the way it's being done now.
9 comments:
I think Rupert is more interested in return on investment at this point...where does "free" get him? He knows how to bait the search engines into bidding and get his piece of the pie at the same time. Free 2D....free how to....that will come after the applications are on the handsets. So why aren't the carriers rushing to do this? That's easy...."show me the money." It's easy to get UNPROFITABLE business if you give away your product or service. Haven't the carrier learned that lesson??
This is a fantastic idea Scott. The infusion of PWC and Myspace will be viral and huge.
Looks like something is already brewing underneath the sea ;)
http://www.myspace.com/paperclick
Did you ever hear of a company called Gilette? That turned out to be a pretty lucrative business, after a "standard" was set.
Free 2D....free how to....that will come after the applications are on the handsets
The 75m users on MySpace will create the traffic and the demand.
So why aren't the carriers rushing to do this?
Because the carriers can't even develop the simplest mobile search application, how do you expect them to attract 75m teens?
"Rupert, would you like to have the mobile traffic of 75m teens going through your server?"
and he would say?
You're not one of those people that believe users will have to pay to click on a 2d code are you? :)
I guess I don't get it.
A MySpace site for a PWC company?
Looking at this site , it says this.
PaperClick's Friend Space
PaperClick has 0 friends.
How is that viral?
Hey anonymous, you're making a joke of yourself. That paperclick 'site' was put up by an individual, not neomedia. It has no significance or relevance to anything.
NO APP on the handset means NOBODY reads ANY barcode, whether "standard" and created by anyone. I do believe that a UNIVERSAL, STANDARD barcode app that decodes MOST IF NOT ALL barcodes is the key to wide adoption.
SOOOOO....if I want the "kids" demographic traffic, and I'm Rupert, I'd find the APP and BE THE (SMART) BRANDS that he already has and offer the APP as a free download to get the kids to use any BARCODE & INFO, including ALL HIS BRAND's.
Scott,
While I agree that apps like this one are a hundred times more enticing to people than advertising apps like the McDonald's wrapper, I think you underestimate how feasible it is for this sort of "viral" approach to take off in the current circumstances.
It all comes back to the handsets. How many in the US will be able to read ANY barcode, at this time? Well, so far as I know, NONE, unless the barcode reading software is downloaded.
But how many handsets can even download a bar code reading app? My strong sense is that only Symbian devices might be able to do that, at this point. And how many Symbian devices are there in the US? I'd guess at most less than 10 million, to date.
So let's suppose that the downloading campaign was enormously successful, and that 10% of Symbian users actually downloaded the bar code reading app. That would be about 1 million consumers capable of using the app -- well less than 1% of the installed base in the US, I'm pretty sure (which must be well over 100 million handsets in use).
Now 1 million users is also about one third of 1% of the population of the US.
So the question is, how do you get a "viral" campaign to work with such a relatively small number of people represented?
I suppose it's possible that in some specialized subgroup, who have Symbian phones or could be enticed to buy them, you'd manage to get enough penetration that it could work. But that seems very "nichey" anyway, and I'm not sure what it would imply for the general population, the true target of the overall PWC application.
Of course, you could have an "app" in which one simply sends the image of a code via, say, messaging -- but how convenient can that possibly be, as opposed to entering human readable info?
Look to Asia for the answer to this riddle. The only way to make it happen is to build bar code reading of some kind into the handsets. Once that's done, any number of ways can be employed to get people to use it -- in fact it will be the potential apps in aggregate that will make the PWC take off, not anything in particular.
In Asia only it is working in Japan and Korea.
The big mobile population is in India and China and they are happy yapping on the phone as of now.
I agree that an applcation that can read all codes would be ideal, but I don't see that happening.
So in the mean time, why not use the power of MySpace to make the MyCode the standard for now?
Let kids create codes that link their backpack, t-shirt, baseball cap etc to their MySpace site or text message conversation?
How about Electronic Arts and MySpace teaming up for a promo?
When advertisers realize that the MyCode scanning application is on the highly targeted demographic phones, what do you think they then do?
You will find advertisers coming to MySpace to present a MyCode on their products to tap into this community.
There's your revenue.
As far as one specific site ofering a code scanning app, that's not how viral marketing works.
Viral marketing is when people tell other people about a neat product. Word of mouth is very powerful.
Having a free 2d code app, and summary, on the home page of MySpace would have a lot of potential for PWC.
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