We waited with bated breath as Tim Cook unveiled the iPhone… 4S?

At least we can say that keeping up with Apple news hasn’t been boring. They’ve been in the habit of surprising us of late and yesterday was no exception. The news that the iPhone 4S doesn’t have NFC was disappointing but not a complete shock. Perhaps taking a step back on this one won’t be such a bad idea. Waiting to see how other mobile phone companies utilise NFC should allow Apple an insight into the technology in exchange for minimal risk. They have their hardcore iPhone fanatics who will certainly be willing to wait.

There are plenty of other manufacturers happy to make a commitment to NFC while Apple watch quietly from the sidelines. Nokia have promised to include the technology in all of their future smartphones, starting with the C7 which was released earlier this year. Google’s recently announced NFC mobile wallet is evidence of their faith in the technology, and RIM proudly announced that future Blackberry devices will be NFC-enabled. Other big names climbing into bed with the technology include Samsung, HTC, LG, Sony Ericcson and Motorala. With all that choice, we don’t need Apple just yet. And let’s face it, they did have a very poor camera for a long time… at least they’ve managed to fix something.

The Alliance will make NFC marketing solutions a reality for businesses the world over. Revolutionising traditional marketing media, the technology promises an interactive, highly measurable experience that will bridge the gap between the offline and online worlds.

News of our alliance has spread far and wide with articles from the Washington Post to Adweek and NFC World, and the response has been incredibly positive. We’re excited to be moving forward with NFC and the Alliance will make global implementation of the technology quicker and easier for all involved.

For the full story on the NFC World Alliance, click here.

The Near Field Club brings together those across the industry to discuss, learn and network. The NFC Launch is an all-day event at Park Tower Hotel, Knightsbridge. Topics to be discussed include the TSM eco-system, NFC rollouts and NFC for public transport. As well as Neil Garner, speakers include Richard Copeland (EverythingEverywhere) and Carl Chandler-Mullins (Orange Group). There will be further experts from both the industy and academia so the day promises to be rewarding.

There’s still time to book a place, so please contact annabel@smartex.com if you are interested.

As most people in the proximity marketing industry will be aware, the iPhone does not support the OBEX Push Bluetooth profile. This limitation means that existing Bluetooth marketing systems cannot deliver content to the iPhone which makes up approximately 4% of the EU5 (U.K., France, Germany, Spain, Italy) mobile phone market. While the overall penetration of iPhones is relatively low, the consumers who own and use the iPhone are the prime target audience for many advertisers and brands.

Is Wi-Fi Marketing the solution

As you would expect the iPhone supports Wi-Fi connectivity, and the configuration is reassuringly simple unlike other smart phones including Blackberrys, so web browsing is easy to setup and the touch screen interface makes navigation a joy. To overcome the iPhone’s Bluetooth marketing limitations, a small number of proximity marketing companies are now using Wi-Fi captive portal technology to deliver proximity advertising via internet connected servers. So is it really this simple to serve advertising content to iPhones? If you have an internet Wi-Fi hotspot like you would find in cafes, airports etc. the answer is probably yes, if not the answer is actually no. Here are some of the issue Hypertag have encountered and overcome while integrating Wi-Fi marketing into our platform.

Connecting the iPhone to a non internet connected Wi-Fi hotspot

When the iPhone connects to a Wi-Fi hotspot it expects to be connected to the internet, if the hotspot is not internet connected the iPhone will refuse to connect. So if you want to deliver advertising content to iPhones in locations such as trade shows, events, underground stations, outdoor advertising panels etc. which do not have wired internet available the traditional captive portal approach falls down. Hypertag’s proximity marketing software has a proprietary solution which allows iPhones to connect to its non internet connected Wi-Fi marketing products and view locally served content overcoming this limitation.

Downloading multimedia advertising content to iPhones

It’s well documented that downloading and saving content to iPhones outside of iTunes and the App Store is heavily restricted by Apple. So if mobile marketing content such as a retail voucher is served from a non internet connected Wi-Fi marketing server to an iPhone which can only view, not download the content, how would the consumer redeem this voucher? Hypertag’s proprietary out-of-range technology allows consumers to view the content they have viewed even when they are not connected to the Wi-Fi marketing server.

Playing videos on iPhones

The iPhone only supports one specific video format, this means that firstly the content must be correctly converted and secondly the consumer must download the correct video format. If the captive portal is serving video to numerous different smart phones the users may be bombarded with many different video links to chose from. Hypertag’s proximity marketing software platform matches content to a specific devices capabilities. Therefore one video link can be presented to all consumers and the system selects the appropriate video content. Hypertag’s proximity marketing management system provides a simple content wizard which guides the user through the process of uploading videos and validates the video formats against what each device supports.

Downloading iPhone applications

Proximity marketing is a great way of targeting applications direct to consumers’ iPhones when at a specific location. Captive portal applications with general purpose internet connectivity can simply provide links to Apple’s App Store. What if the location doesn’t want the burden and cost of providing and supporting general purpose internet access? Hypertag’s proximity marketing software provides a unique and simple to configure firewall solution which enables internet connected proximity marketing servers to link through to applications on the App Store and other device app stores such as Nokia’s Ovi and Android Market while restricting access to any other internet sites.

iPhone Proximity Marketing

In summary there are many challenges to providing a complete iPhone proximity marketing solution that can be deployed across a broad set of locations and can meet a wide range of business requirements. Through innovative technology and a desire to always improve consumers’ user experience Hypertag’s Wi-Fi marketing functionality is the most advanced on the market today. To find out more about our Wi-Fi marketing products please contact Hypertag today.

Proximity Marketing Retail Pilots

While waiting for the long awaited economic recovery, Hypertag has been running a number of retail Proximity Marketing pilots with leading brands and retailers including Unilever, Lynx, Nike, EMI, 3 Mobile, Boots and Burger King. We have been using these pilots to develop a retail mobile marketing proposition that is highly optimised to deliver your brands retail promotion objectives.

Retail Mobile Marketing Solution Refinements

These pilots have enabled us to develop and refine highly visual mobile marketing call to actions that work, develop a framework for selecting the best locations for the Proximity Marketing servers and refine the mobile marketing content and offers to ensure maximum consumer uptake. Hypertag has run retail mobile marketing pilots both in store and on existing Proximity Marketing networks.

Proximity Marketing Pilots Phase2

Hypertag believes that with a combination of in store Proximity Marketing solutions and the use of existing Proximity Marketing networks a truly compelling mobile marketing solution can be offered to consumers. Hypertag is seeking additional brands and retailers to include in its second phase of pilots, if you feel your organisation may be interested in being involved in this exciting opportunity please contact us today.

Proximity or Bluetooth Marketing suppliers face many challenges in delivering solutions that meet consumer demand for instant access to rich content on their mobile devices. Currently most Proximity Marketing systems use Bluetooth as their primary technology to deliver content, so one of the biggest challenges is servicing a large number of consumers quickly with high quality content using a relatively low bandwidth wireless technology.

It has become an industry standard to supply Proximity Marketing servers with 3 Bluetooth radios fitted, any more and you run the risk of radio interference, any less and the system may not have sufficient bandwidth to service the number of consumers wanting content. Bluetooth technology supports up to 7 simultaneous connections per Bluetooth radio, therefore if you have a Proximity Marketing server with 3 radios you should in theory be able to service 21 simultaneous connections, and if you listen to the hype this is what you would expect in practise also.

However, if we look at the analogy of Internet connectivity, we can identify some issues. During low-usage times of the day the Internet will be very responsive and users can download large amounts of data very quickly. However when the number of users goes up you will experience severe degradation of the service and downloads that earlier were very quick are now seemingly very slow. This is caused by limited bandwidth on the Internet connection that everyone is sharing.

The same potential effect exists when downloading content using Bluetooth, so if one consumer is connected to a Proximity Marketing server they will likely experience a quick download, however as the number of connections goes up the download speeds will be significantly reduced due to the limited bandwidth. To put this into perspective, it is expected that with one connection per Bluetooth radio a 500kB video could be downloaded in 30 seconds, if the download takes any longer consumers gets impatient. If more connections are allowed more consumers will be serviced simultaneously, but the download time will drop significantly leading to a bad experience.

It is also worth noting that many mobile phones do not provide a progress bar, (Nokia is one such example) so there is no indication of how much of the download has been completed. Therefore if the download is very slow many consumers will have no idea what is going on, which may result in them giving up.

In understanding the limitations of Bluetooth technology, mobile phones, and consumer experience, Hypertag’s products support 3 simultaneous connections per unit, prioritising download speed rather than number of simultaneous connections. With over 3 years experience of deploying our wearable Hypertags in high load festival and event situations, these units deliver again and again in the toughest of load environments proving this strategy delivers results.

Hypertag’s next generation platform, which will be beta trialling in Q2 2010, includes unique enhancements to better utilise the number of Bluetooth connections without impacting on perceivable download performance. Further details of this system will be available next year.

Location-sensitive information, alongside a constant connection to the internet, will revolutionise mobile media.” Of course, here at Hypertag we couldn’t agree more. Having pioneered location based technologies such as Bluetooth Marketing that can actually deliver content related to your pin point location for eight years, we feel well placed to both see the potential and the culmination of eight years’ experience means we now have the technology to be able to really deliver.

With our long standing partners, using Proximity or Bluetooth Marketing, we are delivering location based internet services today at an ever expanding rate. Those who have permanent networks with us know all about the business success we deliver to them, 20% – 40% of people going on to use internet services when linked to their physical location is commonplace nowadays.

Faster and cheaper over the air (OTA) technologies will only widen the number of applications we can deliver to people at the point of need. If you want to fast forward to 2014 today, give us a call.

Picture credit: Brand Republic

Jonathan Morgan

Bluetooth Marketing campaigns can sometimes go wrong in a big way. You go to the free phone charging station and see an a opportunity to download a free GIG guide on your phone, “great” you think, just what I need, so you fumble around your new Samsung phone trying to find out how to switch the Bluetooth on (not being one of the 25% of people in the UK who now have it permanently switched. How could you?, on your last phone it killed the battery!)

Finally, you get the Bluetooth switched on and wait to receive the promised Festival GIG guide. You wait. You wait. Then if you are lucky you are asked for a pin code, even luckier – you may know it.

Then full of anticipation, instead of the GIG guide you get a File Format Error Message! Not I imagine the great consumer experience the sponsoring brand planned you to have – and SO unnecessary.

This experience can be avoided in lots of ways, for example by employing accurate device detection software on the proximity device; by using up-to-date handset functionality and phone fingerprint databases; by providing backup content (MP3 clips, videos, animations etc) for handsets NOT able to receive Java applications over Bluetooth and by providing clear instructions for music fans telling them what to do and what to expect.

It could have been worse…

Some providers don’t care about the consumer experience, as a matter of policy! They believe that if handsets cannot receive content over more than 10 – 15 meters, tough on fans, “its free – what have they got to complain about!” They’ll offer the content over 100m anyway and leave music fans disappointed when fans can’t download to their handset in the full knowledge that there is no way that handsets can receive content over this distance. Shocking but true!

Elaine Haines

Posted in Uncategorized ]]> http://myproximitymarketing.com/2009/06/05/file-format-error-a-story-from-a-british-music-festival/feed/ 0 elainehaines musicfestival