Mobile Behavior: an Omnicom Group Company

A couple of weeks ago, the American Museum of Natural History released Explorer, an iPhone app and museum guide that has gotten rave reviews. The application makes use of several state of the art technologies, one of which is an indoor Wi-Fi network which allows the Explorer app to pinpoint a user's exact location in the museum and direct them to specific exhibits and even the closest bathroom. It is a prime example of effective brand utility, augmenting a museumgoer's experience while placing the organization's logo on the mobile user's home screen.

What is probably just as impressive as the museum's app is its effort to promote it. AMNH is pushing the application using traditional PR and advertising. Once in the museum, posters educate those waiting in line about the app and how to rent an iPod touch. The ticket stub announces another of its apps: "Dinosaur iPhone app free download at AMNH.ORG/APPs." Of course, Explorer is the first app users see when visiting this URL. Certain exhibits have stickers with iPhones on them as a call-to-action. Ads are visible across the entire museum, it is clear the message AMNH wants to get across.

What's important to realize here, is the power of mobile when properly integrated. As the above image depicts, brand utility plus advertising will yield the best results. Without backing up a mobile application or on-device campaign with advertising, PR, or existing properties, efforts could easily fall flat. We've talked to agencies where a client's refusal to promote an app has resulted in just that.

Another thing to keep in mind is that not all information is meant to be provided through mobile phones just because it can be. Sometimes a "traditional" placard or sticker on an object makes a lot more sense than building an augmented reality application to display the same text. The experience for the user should be as frictionless as possible, and we must consider every medium's strengths and weaknesses. In the case of Explorer, the mobile phone did what nothing else really can -- locate and track a physical individual in order to provide contextual content. Through a combination of the innovative and the obvious, AMNH made a trip to the museum a lot more fun and worthwhile.

Previous coverage of museums using mobile:
Oklahoma Museum Curates with Mobile
MoMa Embraces SMS
Hit Museums and Galleries in Europe

The entertainment industry has many reasons to resent digital technology. Why buy music when you can download via P2P for free? Why go to a game when you have an HD (or even 3D) TV at home? Technology, however, can also be its savior. When used to enhance live entertainment events, mobile can provide a unique, unreproducible experience that people are willing to pay for.

We've seen a number of instances of this. For example, the New Meadowlands Stadium just announced they will soon have an app that lets fans see video replays, updated statistics and live video from other games (and it only works in the stadium).

Augmented reality also has great potential for the constructed and controlled environments of live events. For the upcoming Mysteryland dance festival, ID&T is teaming up with Layar to "augment" the experience through mobile, reports intomobile.

Those attending will be able to start Layar on their iPhone or Android device and do some cool things from the palm of their hand. For instance, there are information on all 150 DJs performing on the 16 stages along with instructions how to get there. Moreover, if you like what you hear, you can directly download the music to your phone via Dance Tunes.

This recalls Zehnder Communications' work for the Voodoo Experience music festival in Louisiana, also done using Layar. Sporting events are another example, see: Junaio superimposing stats on the soccer field.

Berlin-based artists VR/URBAN have constructed a digital slingshot that delivers SMS messages instead of pain. Based on their previous SpreadGun project, it provides a way of making the digital a bit more tangible.

The device is shaped as a wooden slingshot with a built-in mobile phone display, a keypad and a laser. Users can type a text message and shoot it straight at a large facade. A projector pointed at the facade will show the message as a colour splash with the message written within.

The mobile phone is an individual's connection to the surrounding digitally-constructed environment. Increasingly, we'll find it being used for everything from in-store transactions to controlling appliances. But while these things are technically possible now, the hurdle is user behavior. In many cases, people are used to physical, tangible actions. What UX designers will need to do is create "bridge" behaviors that combine the physical and digital.  Bump is a perfect example, because it makes people bump their phones together to exchange digital business cards. This action replaces the physical act of exchanging cards. VR/URBAN took time to consider an interaction that everyday users would immediately recognize and appreciate.

[via textually]

RecreateMyNight is a new service that lets users collectively reconstruct and relive the concert experience using social networks like Facebook and Twitter. It harnesses lifestreaming behavior to generate content around past events.

When fans log on they will see a dashboard where they can click on any concert night to view its recreation or add more media. The website is an advanced social media platform providing users with the ability to view and add content such as video, photos, and status updates. As they travel the country, [a] band will be growing its digital scrapbook by inviting fans to log on and share media.

Yesterday, we saw how text messaging has acted as a "connective tissue for society" during World Cup games. Given the permanence of digital content, we are able to then look back and replay conversation around a given match. Mobile users are actively collecting photos and video during live events in order to remember later.

Today, that content doesn't just sit at home, it is published on sites like Facebook and Flickr. Last fall we observed how concert-goers often waited until the next day to upload and share videos on YouTube. This creates a new morning-after primetime and a behavior that services like RecreateMyNight and SuperGlued bank on.

There is huge potential for brands and artists to participate and enable users in this space. Orange presents a great example with GlastoTag. They provide a 1.3 giga-pixel photo of the crowd at Glastonbury Festival and encourage users to "get tagging," or pinpoint themselves and friends in the masses. From there, Facebook integration helps spread the word via users' social graphs. This lets festival participants relive and remember the experience while also bringing Orange some love.

People are using mobile technology to socialize around events -- before, during, and after -- creating shared experiences. Want proof? UK service provider O2 measured and visualized text message volume around several World Cup games.

During the England - USA game, a total of 23,991,699 messages were sent within O2's network. Volume directly reflects points during the match that were especially exciting. Goals by both teams resulted in peaks of over 3,000 text messages per second.

As NYU's Clay Shirky would say, "media is the connective tissue of society." We see this in live sporting events as well as prime-time television and popular concerts. Services like Hot Potato, GetGlue, and Miso hope to both capture and enhance this conversation as it takes place around all sorts of content.

[via flowingdata]

As part of its Write the Future campaign, Nike has taken over Johannesburg's Southern Life Center building for an interactive LED light show.

"Write the Headline" allows fans around the world to root for their favorite World Cup player in a big way. The installation, almost the size of half a football pitch, displays submissions from Facebook, Twitter ( #writethefuture), QQ (a Chinese chat program), and Mxit (a South African IM app) that read from distances as far as 2.5 kilometers away.

Users vote on the player they think will 'write the future.' Personal messages are then projected on the city's fourth largest building. It's in examples like this that we see how far Twitter and Facebook have come in the past few years.

See Nike's Write the Headline here:

[via coolhunting]

For Cannes next week, festival goers can participate in a Twitter-based game of Marco Polo. It is meant to keep people updated on popular locations and events.

Anyone who tweets @SapientNitro with #Marco will receive a reply with #Polo and a link that will take them to a microsite featuring a map and five nearby hotspots. The microsite also features a Hot/Cold meter that will show the player how close he or she is to Marco Polo himself.

When someone is "hot" enough, they will be sent a photograph of a person to tackle and receive a free iPad. It is a creative use of Twitter, bridging the classic game of Marco Polo into a digital world.

[via creativity]