If you pick up a starving dog and
make him prosperous, he will not bite you. That is the principal difference
between a dog and a man
Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s
Calendar
It seems that I spoke too soon.
People, one of the Big Three (3) Broadcasters has awoken from its slumber in
response to the potential advertising loss being visited upon it by the trend
of time shifting using DVR (Digital Video Recorders), watching DVD’s and WebTV
as stated in the article “Survey of
viewers shows extent of TV time shifting”, published Tuesday August
17, 6:53 am ET By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer, Yahoo! News.
This services is soon to be visited
upon them by the launch of as-for-now-uncapped WiMax 4G Mobile (IEEE 802.16d)
Broadband service Digicel Broadband from Telecom Provider Digicel as stated in
the article “Digicel goes 4G”,
published Saturday, August 21, 2010 By ROSS SHEIL Online co-ordinator, The Jamaica Observer
Just in the nick of time too, as the
RJR Communications Group was taking a beating in the form Second Quarter Losses
in 2010 as stated in the article “RJR profits drop
53% in June Q”, published Friday, August 20, 2010, The Jamaica Observer.
The RJR Communications Group’s
youngest child, Multimedia Jamaica Limited, has, in a flash of inspiration, a
clear case of happenstance and experimentation (first ever for a local
broadcaster!!) began beta testing a new technology called Direct Targeted
Advertising based on Bluetooth powered technology by a company called BlueWave
Caribbean from out of the United Kingdom, of all places!
This is a technology that I had
previously hinted was possible in a previous series of in my blog articles
entitled:
These set of proposals I had sent to
Telecom Provider Digicel, but as usual with those techie-types, they showed no
interest in researching the concept and experimenting with it as an additional
source of revenue, which, in a twist of irony, the younger child of a very old
broadcaster has decided to dabble.
By making that decision, the RJR
Communications Group has become the first company in Jamaica and indeed the
entire Caribbean to use this little know type of advertising known as Direct
Targeted Advertising powered by Bluetooth as stated in the article “Bluetooth ads
coming to cellphones soon”, published Wednesday, August 25, 2010 by Alicia Roache Business reporter, The Jamaica Observer
Bluewave Technologies is a very close
cousin of Behavioral Targeted Advertising as stated in the article “Study: Like it
or not, behavioral ad targeting works”, published March 24, 2010
9:01 AM PDT by Caroline McCarthy, CNET News
– The Social ().
Wherein lies the difference?
Behavioral Targeted Advertising is dependent on being a member of a Social
Network that has geo-location e.g. FourSquare, who started this concept and
FaceBook Places readily comes to mind. Both services that have the capability
to push you targeted advertisements and offerings on your mobile smart phone
based on your “likes” as selected on your Social Network.
Once you are in proximity of an
advertiser based on your GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) location, your
acceptance of the advertisement being recorded as a hit at the time of
“check-in” to use this now prolific term originated by FourSquare, who started
the trending towards geo-location.
Direct Targeted Advertising is also
location based, but is unsolicited advertising and is more dependent on
proximity of the customer to a fixed Wireless Network, be it a Wi-Fi (IEEE
802.11n), Bluetooth or Mobile Cellular Network to push advertising to a
customer.
This is much in the same way Telecom
Providers, without your prompting, send you SMS (Short Messaging Service) or
Text messages to your mobile phone, most likely a cost they themselves absorb
or in the case of Third Party SMS providers, such as CoreTalk Communications Limited. CoreTalk
Communications Limited specializes in such Direct Targeted
Advertising via SMS.
Thus this service is nothing new
under the Sun. The genius of BlueWave Caribbean, a subsidiary of the British
company that is championing this advertising concept in Jamaica, is that unlike
SMS based services from CoreTalk
Communications Limited, which can also be utilized for advertising.
It is free to the customer and is Telecom Provider agnostic as Bluetooth is
already ubiquitous on most mobile smart phones and “feature” phones, be they on
Telecom Provider Digicel, CLARO or LIME’s Network.
Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11n) is also becoming
more ubiquitous on mobile smart phones as well as on household appliances and
gadgets, such as 3-D HDTV’s as per my previous blog articles, thus the concept
of advertising being pushed to you on mobile smart phones via Municipal Wi-Fi
(IEEE 802.11n) Networks such as Dekal Wireless is very possible in the future
and is most likely possible, especially as this Asian Tiger spreads its message
of low cost, modem-less “Super-Wi-Fi”.
Another big advantage of using
Bluetooth as a medium to push advertising is that you can choose if you wish to
receive the advertising or not, much as one is able to opt-in or opt-out of
being tracked by your friends using geo-location services such as FourSquare.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has decided to
opt-in everyone into FaceBook Places and make it a tad tedious to opt-out,
which thankfully, Molly Wood, Executive Editor at CNET has been most kind to
give us the “411” as the Americans would say, in the video “CNET
How To - Turn Off Facebook places”, aired Monday August 23 2010,
by Molly Wood, Executive Editor, CNET News.
Bluetooth’s very own proprietary technology
helps to mitigate against any perceived risk of invasion of privacy due to this
opt-in feature, but it truly makes one worry about content that is not
appropriate for children. Ironically, the Broadcasting Commission had no axe to
grind with the RJR Communications Group, especially as they are already
compliant in their advertising on broadcast free-to-air Television and Radio.
This new advertising venture is
expected to hit the ground running and with a bang, as merely porting the
advertisements that are acceptable to the Broadcast Commission will help to
spur its adoption, as already Jamaicans have been clamoring for geo-location
services, which have fallen on the deaf ears of Telecom Providers and even
local startup MonaGIS (Geo-Informatics) Ltd.
This is ironic, as a female friend of
mine on FaceBook who is employed at MonaGIS (Geo-Informatics) Ltd
originally gave me the idea of tracking people via a suggestion she made to me
in 2009 via email (sorry, can’t post my private emails!!) about using GPS
outside of building and a local network indoors to track people. Ostensibly a
reference to Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11n) or GloPos Communications Ltd GSM based
technology which allows single tower triangulation as stated in the article
"Global
Positioning without GPS”, published September 13, 2009, 11:30PM EST
by Kevin Tofel, BusinessWeek.
Worse, I posted the suggestion
repeatedly on BOTH Telecom Provider Digicel and MonaGIS (Geo-Informatics) Ltd
Facebook pages, even sending Telecom Provider Digicel hardcopies of my concept
for a Mobile Social Network, which by the way is a combination of ConnectU,
CreditU and C&W BlingBack Tunes back in 2002 and its updated cousin Digicel
InTunes.
Guess as usual, it takes foreigners
to shake up the advertising business for it to become relevant, hence the
reason why I give away any of my purloined ideas over the Internet and bask in
the glory at the Baxter Building among the employees of Amazing PC and
the Bee Hive at the back of Bargain Village in May Pen,
Clarendon.
I am extremely happy that Jamaica is
going to be the first to try this out. Advertisers will love this too, as it
breathes life into some ideas I purloined from Red Stripe as it relates to
Mobile Advertising and Marketing Metrics, which I later gave away in 2003 and
started the Social Networking trend now known as Twitter and FaceBook….and its
many related cousins.
Persons would then say that with an
opt-out feature, no one will opt-in and support receiving advertising. However
that worry is easily brushed aside as well, as Jamaicans love free giveaways,
as evident from Telecom Provider Digicel and their previous free giveaways and
current Jus Buss Promotion and as they are many
Jamaican with foreign travel experience who may be using FourSquare, Loopt,
Gowalla and FaceBook Places.
This trend will rapidly catch on,
especially as persons get used to the idea of getting free giveaways, party
tickets, even mobile phone credit from the various Telecom Providers based on
just “check-in” to a location or in this case with the BlueWave Caribbean
Bluetooth Technology, coming into proximity of a Bluetooth Network
strategically positioned to broadcast advertising information.
Most likely, the carrier to provide
interconnectivity will undoubtedly and ironically be Digicel Broadband, their
most prolific advertiser and partner-in-crime, thus making the Bluetooth
Wireless Hotspots remote and independent of manual intervention.
New advertising can be remotely
pushed to these Bluetooth Wireless Hotspots on a on-demand basis over Digicel
Broadband WiMax 4G Mobile (IEEE 802.16d) Network. Profitability is guaranteed,
thus the RJR Communications Group may be saved, ironically by its potential
killer: 4G Broadband. Poetic Justice indeed……….
The words of Director of BlueWave
Caribbean sum it up best: “It's new technology so do you wait for regulations
to come in or do you give people the opportunity to experience the technology?
My preference is to give people the opportunity to experience the technology”.
Had Telecom Provider Digicel or MonaGIS (Geo-Informatics) been a little more
forward thinking, they would have seen this coming too………….albeit it is not too
late.
My proposals for Brown
Dawg Mobile Social Network are freely available for copying from
my blog, as I have already become bored with this and started working on a
proposal for another big future Social Networking Trend: Augmented View and its
relation to Video Calling Social Network Chatroulette……..Dolche Gabbana and Mui
Mui style
1 comment:
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