Proximity Advertising
Just attended the MoMo Delhi meet a couple of days back. It was a good experience all in all. It was energising to see the enthusiasm in the atmosphere. But I think it can do better with a little more structure and direction. The delhi chapter of this group is quite new and I am sure it will grow manifolds in the times to come.
One of the things that caught my attention (not necessarily in a good way :)) was a talk over Proximity Advertising by a company called ValueFirst. They have developed a piece of hardware which can keep on sending advertisements over Bluetooth (as OBEX messages) to devices in the range. What I liked was the effort and enthusiasm with which they presented their stuff, but could not stop wondering if that really made sense. I did some googling to find out if there are others who are doing it, and found to my amazement that a lot of people are doing it.
Advertising works and makes sense when it comes along and on top of great value. When you watch ads on the TV, you get annoyed but you still watch them because you are getting to see great content within which these ads come. When you watch ads on the internet, you dont mind them because they come when you are visiting an interesting website, and the ad is sitting is flashing on the bottom right corner. Tell me how would you feel if a pop up comes up on your screen time and again, and (lets get fancy) you are not even using the internet. Thats what these guys are trying to achieve.
Bluetooth is a great technology which has not yet been harnessed even to a fraction. But come on guys, lets be a little creative. Lets create value for the users first. If I can create value for my users, if i can create something which people love to engage with, I dont think I require an Einstein to tell me how to make money from it.
Apart from this, there were a lot of other interesting presentations. Will come back to write about them as well.