Posted By gsteen - March 15, 2012
In 2009, Foursquare exploded onto the tech scene after it made waves at SXSW by providing attendees a fun and useful way to coordinate with friends as they bounced from place to place in downtown Austin.
This spawned a fascination with location-based services (LBS) that saturated the industry for the following couple of years. After seeing countless LBS start-ups make their way into the spotlight, most people in the marketing, advertising and
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Posted By Ivy Chang - November 3, 2011
The holiday season is notorious for long lines at the check-out counter, overly crowded malls, and the likelihood of the item you are searching for being sold out. It’s a big endeavor, but if you’re looking for the best deals of the year, you will have to stick it out or look for other ways to get the job done.
A PriceGrabber study shows that 13 percent of holiday shoppers are
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Posted By gsteen - October 6, 2011
Computers are smart. It's an obvious statement.
But really. Computers are smart.
So smart that they can look at information from the past and predict the future with startling accuracy. If you examine enough data, patterns can be found and as more of the world's data becomes cross-compatible through semantic technology, it is easier to include larger sums of information in this analysis. This leads to more patterns and more accurate conclusions.
This applies
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Posted By eknab - July 13, 2011
Most people think augmented reality, or AR, is a type of mobile app that adds a digital layer to the real world. That isn't entirely true. It's more than visual, more than mobile and has more marketing potential than you may have realized.
The Status Quo of Augmented Reality
The stereotypical implementation of augmented reality involves a smartphone and an app. Users of such platforms typically open up the app, which turns
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Posted By gsteen - June 28, 2011
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company has launched World Concierge, a Foursquare-based concierge service that offers users tips about local destinations, landmarks and activities. The hotel chain hopes that this service will drive increased usage of their on-site concierges, who increase loyalty and customer satisfaction by building relationships with those who stay at the hotel.
Implications: Location-based services can be a very effective way for marketers to deliver helpful information when and where it
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Posted By sspearman - June 23, 2011
American Express has partnered with Foursquare to roll out a nationwide service that links AmEx cards to Foursquare accounts to simplify Foursquare deal redemption at points of sale. After checking in at a retailer, the deal is unlocked and the user can load the deal to his/her AmEx card. When the synced AmEx card is used at check out, the discount is applied to the user's credit statement. National retailers
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Posted By gsteen - June 22, 2011
4squareand7yearsago is a tool created at Foursquare Hack Day which will send subscribers a daily email letting them know where they were exactly one year ago, based on their check-ins on Foursquare. The tool uses Foursquare's API, which the company released with the intent of letting outside parties remix their information in clever ways such as this, thereby increasing the role the service plays in its users' lives.
Implications: This is
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Posted By sspearman - June 21, 2011
Coca-Cola Israel recently executed a recycling campaign that heavily integrated Facebook Places. Coke Israel added 10,000 recycling centers to the Facebook Places database and encouraged users to check in and snap a photo as they used the recycling centers. The most active user was crowned the Coca-Cola Recycling King.
Implications: By doing the legwork of adding the large number of recycling centers to Facebook, Coca-Cola was able to raise awareness of
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Posted By eknab - June 8, 2011
With sites such as DamnYouAutocorrect.com it is no secret that predictive text can lead to some shocking and/or horrifying scenarios. Predictive analysis, on a more helpful note, can allow users and brands to take advantage of information mining or keep tabs on emerging media content that is soon to be a big hit. Brands can use this information to stay on the forefront of emerging trends in their industries.
Sites such
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Posted By gsteen - May 19, 2011
When the Microsoft Zune MP3 player first hit store shelves in 2006, it boasted a very interesting feature. Users could send songs to other Zune owners via Wi-Fi cards built into the devices. Why didn't it take off? No one could find another Zune owner anywhere nearby. But Microsoft was onto something big with the feature. Proximity-based social networks can facilitate digital interactions with friends and spontaneous rendez-vous with strangers.
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