Rococo

Good article in last week's Silicon republic about Bluetooth being used in Proximity marketing, even if I do say so myself (I'm quoted in the article a few times). I particularly liked this tidbit which helps answer the question : "what proportion of phones (in general) have Bluetooth switched on?" :

An estimated 35,000 shoppers pass through the mall’s doors every day and around 20pc have their phone’s Bluetooth setting switched on by default.

Very interesting - as this kind of data can be hard to get. You need somewhere where they know their volume of foot traffic (like a mall) plus some Bluetooth-aware kit running (like a proximity marketing solution from Bluemedia) in order to get this tally. Most useful.

The Bluemedia stuff looks pretty cool and we plan to give it a closer look and report back down the line.

Posted by Sean at 03:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We're users of the Zyb platform/service here at Rococo, and so we were tickled to see it make an acquisition which brought some Bluetooth location-awareness into the fold. Zyb has bought Imity, for an undisclosed amount. The key driver seems to have been to stitch the location-based awareness (aka Pocket Radar) that Imity had implemented in to the Zyb offering.

This usage scenario for Bluetooth (where Bluetooth's location-ness is connected to one or more social networks to tell you something about other people nearby) is now becoming very common, and I'd expect to see it as a standard element of any decent mobile social networking offering within 6-12 months. Imity also brings some very cool crowd-sensing stuff to the party (see their blog for examples).

Good news - we look forward to trying out the newly integrated service when it's been "Zyb'd" and wish everyone involved all the best.

Posted by Sean at 03:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As discussed last year - mobile marketing with Bluetooth really seems to work, and the stats in terms on user-engagement, when it's implemented responsibly to the "right" target audience, are off the scale.

- Marketing targeted at men in clothes stores in India. Get them to play games while they shop. As they play and win, they get discounts.
- Football clubs using Bluetooth to market to fans in the UK. Free content and downloads for fans at the games. From BluePod Media.
- And another from the UK, posters that are "active". Particularly interesting as it's a local authority behind this (as opposed to a mega brand or marketing company).

Bluetooth is inherently local. As I have mentioned before here, there are some good angles to use Bluetooth to promote contextually relevant offers and information. By definition, when you connect to a Bluetooth service, to some extent, that service "knows" where you are ("in train station", "in football stadium", "in store") and can impute some things about what you're doing, or what you might be interested in. The benefits for marketing and promotions are obvious. Watch for Google to add some sizzle in this area as they get Android handsets out to market.

Posted by Sean at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We've been accepted to give a talk at the Java Mobile and Embedded Developer Days Conference. This is on in late January in Santa Clara, California, and the lineup overall is looking pretty good.

Overview here.

We're going to cover the "Past, Present and Future of JSR82( Java Bluetooth APIs)". If there's anything you'd like us to cover (we have an hour) - drop a line!

Look forward to seeing you there!

Posted by Sean at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Will the shiny new GPhone have Java / Bluetooth on board? I think so.

Why?

Three simple reasons.

Advertising is going to feature heavily in the GPhone (eh, duh!). And so, who better to capitalise on the encouraging statistics around Bluetooth Marketing than The Google? They'd be mad not too. Plus, bet they'd do a sweet job on the marketing interaction. They'd "add value" to tie in options for their real-world vendors to connect with customers passing by. In one fell swoop, they'd be able to offer a way for you to deploy your ads as mobile coupons, proximity offers, yada yada. This alone is a good enough reason. But I promised three!

Presence. As in - connecting your phone to real-world stuff and real-world people, in real time, mixing together that online/on-phone stuff for magic and fun. You meet a friend. You both have GPhones. You both have "opted in" to Google's presence service (powered by Jaiku plus Google IM plus Google's new open social network platform). Updates automagically flow to your online profile. "Sean met Joe at 4ish today". Nice. Many options to drive value-add apps.

Java. Bluetooth by now is becoming standard on all mid to high end phones, and appearing as a feature on many of the low-cost models. Om says he reckons Java is slated for the GPhone. In which case, they'd just be mad not too. JSR82 ties Java to Bluetooth, opening Bluetooth to upper layer applications, and providing the crucial "near me" presence glue.

So then. Anyone know who in Google we'd talk to about our Market Leading JSR82 Technology?

:-)

Posted by Sean at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If these latest stats quoted are even remotely correct, then there's a bright future for Bluetooth in marketing.

Two killer factoids:

At a shopping centre in Newcastle, out of a possible 45,000 shoppers who were offered to receive Bluetooth content, over 20 per cent opted to download

Another recent study carried out on a global sample by Universal McCann demonstrates that opt-in Bluetooth content is the most popular form of mobile advertising, with 72 per cent of the global sample expressing their approval. Conversely, ‘interruptive’ mobile advertising, including banners on mobile internet pages and TV adverts on mobiles, were rejected by 61 per cent of respondents.

I'm quoting from this story about Bluetooth marketing in Cinemas in the UK. If these numbers hold up (and I see some anecdotal evidence that people are more willing to opt-in to Bluetooth campaigns), then we're going to see lots more Bluetooth marketing in the next 12-24 months.

Good news for JSR82 too I suspect.

Posted by Sean at 05:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)