Locative technologies are a growing area of interest for me. I believe that GPS, cell-tower triangulation and even good old Bluetooth will play a large part in making cloud-computing extra-relevant to consumers.

I know that people get a bit funny with the blend of real locations and virtual space (see Google Street View debacle) but once we’re all using our next-gen pieces of UI, your networked device could begin to act as a portal to new layers of information useful to you about the city, street, or shop you are in.

I am talking about location-based advertising. An implementational nightmare, but it is foreseeable that Semantic technologies could serve geographically relevant messages, charging advertisers on a cost per impact basis. Google kind of do this with their local search results. It’s a bit shit at the moment though.

The nearest we have to the kind of next-gen solution I’m thinking of is lastminute.com’s free service NRU, available on the Android OS. It lets you scan around your environment with your phone acting as a viewfinder, where cinemas, restaurants and theatres are overlaid in a sonar-like interface. These services pay a small amount to lastminute.com on an affiliate basis, or are paid inclusions:

There’s one locative service I’m disappointed never took off in the UK, despite being around for a while. BrightKite is a kind of location-based Twitter, and it had real promise until Google came stomping all over them with the release of Latitude.

If I were to ‘check in’ at The Queens Larder on Russell Square, BrightKite users would see my marker and message on a map of the area, as well as other people checked in nearby. The potential for social interaction is high, because through using the service one feels proximity with other users.

With all this in mind, I’d like my readers to ‘feel closer’ to me, so as well as in this post I’ll be placing my Latitude Location Badge on my Contact Page. If you’re in the vicinity, go ahead and either serve me an advert or say hello. I won’t mind which.

T-Mobile attracted a huge 18,000 visitors to the event last night in Trafalgar Square, who were informed of the happening through an integrated twitter, viral seeding, PR and Mobile campaign. Subscribers and visitors to the lifesforsharing YouTube channel were also informed, as were members of existing Facebook fan groups.

Here are my best images taken from the front. There is no denying that this was a highly polished media affair, but it was carried off with enough honesty to create what I think was a truly positive feeling. Even Vernon Kaye was brilliant, and I usually hate him.

Here’s a teaser for the T-Mobile campaign I’m working on at the moment.
It is going to be huge! Please help me pass it along.

More details to follow but for an early preview, check out the YouTube channel, Facebook page and Flickr group.

QR Code for WAP Address

The premise of online media is that it is fully accountable, a feature  that I’m sure contributes to Digital’s continued growth during the recession.
It means I can track from impression to conversion across hundreds of thousands of users.
It means I can optimise towards my best performing sites to maximise ROI.
It means any number of other benefits, which I’ll come to in a later post (heh).

For a couple of years, Mobile has been nought but a testing ground for advertisers, a place to paddle around in experimental waters, usually as a way to get the most out of any remaining budget.
It was impossible to gain true visibility over the results, because the infrastructure was constantly in flux, as the big players fought for their technologies to take precidence.

Now the Mobile space is beginning to settle down, everything is changing…

Our new mobile ad campaign will be the first in the world to run through a third party adserver. In partnership with Nokia and Eyeblaster, my agency have planned and are about to execute the first wholly trackable mobile campaign.  This means the same visibility and efficiencies can be ported to a new medium, from the better established digital cousin of Online.
This breakthrough may very well mean Mobile is a first addition to a plan, rather than a final one.

Our new advergame for T-Mobile, developed by Kempt Media and seeded by Killer Viral.

The brief was to deliver on the theme “Double Your Credit” to launch T-Mobile’s new product, which lets you top up £10 in the week, and recieve £10 free credit at the weekend.

I’m posting this here to to help the ‘viral’ process, so grab an embed url and get stuck in!