Written on August 31st, 2009 by ADMINno shouts
QR barcode scavenger hunts garner great publicity for the company running them if excuted successfully. This week, in NYC, online rare toy and art retailer Kidrobot is running one of the most clever mobile scavenger hunts I’ve seen. Using mobile barcodes, players have to scour the streets of NYC this week (Aug 31 – Sept 4) to find secret Dunny Hunt codes and win prizes.
Players must download a free QR Code Reader program to their iPhone, Blackberry or other smart phone. There are codes that can be found online, as well as in Manhattan. The more virtual “Dunnys” collected, the better chance of winning prizes. The website offers a map which gives clues to the locations of the hidden Dunnys.
Many Kidrobot toys are extremely rare and collectible and cannot be found anywhere else in the world. Toy artists often choose to create a series of only a few hundred or a few thousand pieces, so once a toy is sold out, it’s sold out forever. Kidrobot toys retail from $6 to $20,000, and may appreciate in value over time. The Dunnys don’t come cheap, so the prizes, though they may look like toys, are also pricey collectors items worth scouring the city over.
According to Media Post, the company, whose products sell in over a thousand stores around the world, is using the New York program as a test, and plans to roll it out in the four other cities in which it has stores — and perhaps elsewhere.
Ad firm We Are Plus’s principal Jeremy Hollister and co-creative director Judy Wellfare at got the idea after spending time in Japan. “This technology has been used in Japan for some time, but it’s still relatively new here in America,” Hollister told Media Post. Source: Mobile Marketing Watch
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Written on August 16th, 2009 by ADMINno shouts
Microsoft and Nokia announced an alliance on Wednesday to bring business software to smartphones and counter the dominance of Research in Motion’s BlackBerry.
The alliance between the world’s largest software company and cellphone maker, says Reuters, means the latest versions of Microsoft’s Mobile Office applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and messaging, will be available on a range of Nokia cellphones, which make up more than 4o percent of the global smartphone market.
For Nokia, the move brings the business potential of Microsoft Office apps to the Symbian platform. “This is really about creating a formidable challenge for RIM rather than anyone else,” said Nokia executive vice president Kai Oistamo in a conference call Wednesday.
For Microsoft, the move helps the software maker in its goal of fending off competition from Google and extending Office from the desktop into the larger world of Web, PC, and phone. “Extending that reach to 200 million Nokia smartphones was a natural for us,” said Microsoft corporate vice president Takeshi Numoto.
The BlackBerry has created the market for mobile e-mail, and its dominant position in the corporate sector, especially in North America, has protected it from Nokia’s attempts to crack the market in recent years.
The alliance also aims to counter Google’s recent move to free online software, like Google Apps, target Microsoft’s business customers, and Apple’s popular iPhone.
The Nokia alliance may spell doom for Windows Mobile, opines ComputerWorld. Symbian is the world’s leading mobile operating system and runs on nearly half the smartphones globally, while Windows Mobile hasn’t advanced beyond fourth place worldwide.
Nokia phones running Office are expected sometime next year. The first Microsoft Office product on Nokia smartphones will be its Mobile Communicator, which allows business users to find and then communicate with colleagues by instant messages.
The alliance brings Microsoft’s Office suite to a much wider audience than the users of Windows Mobile phones, which make up 9 percent of the smartphone market.
The two companies stressed that the new venture will not affect the future of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and Nokia’s Symbian operating systems for smartphones. Executives said Nokia has no plans to make a Windows Mobile device.
Microsoft’s Word, Excel, and Exchange e-mail programs generate billions in profits. Google Apps may force Microsoft to defend Office, either through smaller profits or heavier investments. Microsoft on July 13 said it will offer free, ad-supported versions of the software suite, as well as a more sophisticated paid version, next year.
So far, sales of Google Apps have been tiny. Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay says business versions of the software will generate $140 million in 2009 sales, about half a percent of Google’s total.
Source: Dailywireless.org
Written on May 21st, 2009 by ADMINno shouts
New devices to hit our provisioning platform in the last 7 days. Notables are the Samsung Android device, the BlackBerry 9630 aka Niagara and the first sightings on a Nokia S40 6th edition running the WebKit browser. Source http://www.paxmodept.com/telesto/blogitem.htm?id=785
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