Facebook’s move on colliding itself to reality

Long ago David Hughes has shared a case that, by providing some incentive, a local retail shop can drive facebook fans which in return drive additional sales; similar was done by Google Place, formerly known as Google Local Business, by uploading you business location to their data center, you will have your store located on Google Map search when someone is searching keywords related to you; Of course, foursquare is having a even cleverer way to do the trick, by checking-in, to encourage real-life traffics through virtual gaming… 

All these… are pushing the internet forward, just want it to collide with the reality.

And now facebook has finally made his move.

Shopkeepers and Fan Page owners can now have these window decal on their shop windows. Customers, who have a mobile with SMS-function, simply text the above message to a specific receiver (32665 in this case), you will then “Like” the shop.

Brilliant.

Not only such decals expands facebook network to reality, but also how they manage to leverage their network for offline shop owners, elegantly.

Can’t wait to see the effect of this move. (and what will Google react btw? =P)

Cheers,

Dickson W.

Related Posts:

Facebook Sends Window Decals to Local Businesses - Mashable

Exploring the boundary of AR Marketing - by Adidas

While people believe that AR, Augmented Reality, is one of the star technologies that would properly change our world, its marketing potential is still in its infancy stage and we’ve yet-to-know its true limitation as not many of us have the resources for experiments…

until Adidas begins its adventure.

From Wired:

“The foundation of augmented reality lies in adding a layer to the real world,” says Chris Barbour, head of digital marketing for Adidas Originals. “That’s what we have done. We have taken a real world item and added a fantastic virtual world on top of that”

All users have to do is go to the Adidas site and hold up their sneaker, which has a code embedded in its tongue, in front of their computer webcam. A virtual world then pops out in front of them and they can navigate it using their sneaker as a controller.

“We are not trying to mimic a real-world look, we have a more stylized, pop-up book creative approach,” says Barbour. “The neighborhood is displayed on a two dimensional computer screen, but you can use your shoe to control the angle and depth of view and zoom in and out, giving a 3-D sense of perspective.”

Over the next few months, Adidas plans to introduce three augmented reality games developed by game developer xForm into the virtual neighborhood. The sneakers will then serve not only as the key to get in, but also act as the controller for the games. Among those available will be a skateboard game, where the sneaker acts as the controller to navigate the virtual city’s alleys, a Star Wars-like game with the sneaker and a music-based game.

So three more AR games will be shown in the coming few months, which is, of course, as cool as Adidas’ brand. ;)

Adidas Augmented Reality - Every team needs the Spark from Nigel Upchurch on Vimeo.

Personally, i believed that Big Brand should go Big, i might be correct partially - Big Brand should also Go Wild & be Adventurous, like Adidas.

As resources may not your major concern, so why not try to be the first who discover the next New World?  =)

Dickson W.

When hard-selling becomes smoother….

Despite that the traditional hard-selling is still focusing in forcing-messages-into-your-brain technique, it does evolve:

So, an adorable lady from FF13 wearing commercial goods in reality…. and of course, such tactics does bridge the online and offline world, and definitely, it worth lots of money.

While game designers were struggling for the suitable clothing to dress up their characters, they now have a better solution… ;)

Good or bad? As long as the dressing complete the characters & story settings, it’s fine with me; as long as I still play a game as a game, instead of a 24-hours-long interactive commercial ad..

To an extreme, any game can be financial supported solely using such tactics, selling ad. throughout the game cleverly without ruining the game itself, and hopefully, this will lead to free excellent games, like FF series, as they no longer rely on sales anymore.

Are you a gamer-lover? Do you favor or dislike such hard-selling technique in video games?

Dickson

?

Marketing Job Interview

src: xkcd

So you now know what to do in your coming interview, right? =)

Dickson W.