I came across someones blog about the future of advertising and it consists of advertising through your cell phone. How does this work, you ask? Well, say your texting your friend about wanting to go to go see a movie with her and somehow through the semantic SMS device it finds and recognizes key words, and in this case it would recognize "cinema" or "movies" and it would come up with theaters near where you are. This could get pretty useful or rather annoying. Normally, at least in my case I see a movie from time to time, therefore I am aware of where the movie theaters are in my area, so having an "Ad" pop up would most likely annoy me. However, if I were in an unfamiliar area and were trying to find a theater near my friends house, I think it would be pretty useful and save me time.
After thinking about this a little more I thought about how people use words that don't necessarily mean what it actually means. For example a lot of people use the word "chill" instead of "hanging out" or "nothing". So if I were to text my friend and he or she said "let's chill tonight", will the semantic SMS word recognizer be up to date with the current lingo? Or will they send me the weather for the upcoming week or send me the address of popular clothing store, with the hopes of me buying a sweater?
What I don't want happening is pop up advertisements for useless junk popping up on my cell phone, and will people come up with virus' that will negatively affect my cell phone? My guess is, most likely. Another question I have, is not for the cell phone users, but for the people investing money in these cell phone advertisements...how do you know that your money will be well spent? How do you know that when a person gets a suggestion to go to your store from one of your pop ups, that it will inspire them to go to that store, because it could do the exact opposite and inspire them NOT to go, because of that annoying little ad.
I think that the concept is good, but my question is will the end result be as successful or helpful as the main idea?
http://mobileinc.co.uk/2010/03/concept-the-future-of-mobile-advertising-on-handset-semantic-sms-advertising/
While I think this is a useful idea to some degree, I don't think it's something I would like. I text someone to talk to them, not to be sold something. We are exposed to advertising each and everyday, and even though it's something I enjoy working with, I don't want it to take over my cell phone. I think your question about if the advertising money would be well spent is extremely valid. I think I would be annoyed with the ads and it would deter me from going into a store. I would probably opt out of the ads if it was a choice.
ReplyDeleteI think it does, in fact, have the potential to become an extremely annoying part of cellular usage. BUT, think about when we were kids. How annoying were commercials? Then again, yet, there were still the ones we'd wait for and jump up to tell a sibling or parent "THATS IT, THATS THE ONE!"
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, as far as the money's concerned, think about the article about the long tail. If out of a GAZILLION ads triggered by keywords 1,000 of the customers were like, "F*ck yea! That's perfect...SO CONVENIENT!" then I think it may be worth an investment in the long run... Regardless, I would hate it, much like i dislike the ads on fb and the ads that interrupt my Pandora sessions or my YouTube videos.
I think this one can go either way. Personally, I text to talk to someone or find out information. Not to see advertising. But at the same time, could it be helpful? Yes it totally could. Your in the area of a store or you were "thinking" about going there and now you will stop on your way home. I personally think it depends on the person and the situation. Because I can see were it would be helpful and it would be annoying all at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why it says anonymous but I KATHLEEN HAND WROTE THE ONE ABOVE THIS!
ReplyDeleteannoying all the way! I couldn't imagine me thinking I have a text from someone or looking up things on my cell phone and getting hit with several different advertisements. and yes agree with you... what if my cell does get a virus or something, I would be so mad. but anyway plain and simple I think this is annoying, advertising is going wayy too far.
ReplyDeleteI'm on the fence! I subscribe to different ways of advertising- I get e-mails from Sephora, Borders and dELiAS, and often, they have good stuff! People tend to write it off.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to advertising with SMS, however, I'm a little more hesitant. Imagine all the text message charges and the pointless messages even more irrelevant than that drunk message you got from a friend last night? It just seems really unappealing and almost invasive to a degree.
I think that would get very annoying to get advertisements on the phone. Think about it, everything would have to be very accurate or else it would be useless. You mentioned the movies, I work at a movie theatre and if people were looking for the showings and times, it would need to be correct right from the company. There are customers that come in all the time that get their times from the newspaper that is always wrong and they get so frustrated. If you got the wrong information from your phone advertisement, I'm sure everyone would be just as mad. It is a tricky area and needs to be planned carefully before getting launched.
ReplyDeleteI already hate getting my email sent to my phone, because I get junk mail all the time from stores and companies, and I want to disconnect it, so if advertisements started to stream through my phone, I think I would insane. They would never stop. I know some of them have coupons and tell you of great sales, but ugh, it just gets old after a while. I know I am an advertising major, but still. I get annoyed, much like everybody else. It's just another thing that will break my phone, make it slower, freeze it. I don't want that! And I do not want them taking tips from my texts, half of the things I write are jokes, and are a little silly, but there is nothing that I say that I would want an ad for, if ya catch my drift!
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