Trade show / event marketing using Bluetooth
Discussion
Summary – I heard about this through one of our customers, as they had got a message sent to their phone when they walked into a hotel, advertising one of the businesses within the hotel. The message was sent via Bluetooth, so anyone with a phone in range, with Bluetooth in, can receive the info. If Bluetooth is off, or if phone is set as invisible, they wont.
You can buy dedicated “boxes” that will scan for Bluetooth phones within range, and send them a message using normal Bluetooth functionality – such as a picture, text file, contact card etc. Phones with Bluetooth turned on, and set to visible, will show the message on screen, or show a “--- has sent you a file – accept/reject”. Some phones just pop it up right away and auto-accept, some ignore it altogether. It’s commonly referred to as “bluejacking”, its not any sort of hacking, but doing what the phones were designed to do – exchange things. Some pubs and clubs are already doing this with ads for special nights, drinks offers etc.
This has great appeal for trade shows / events where everyone in the room (such as the NEC) is interested in the same thing, wondering around with mobile phones. A user of such a system can get an advert to a good proportion of the people within range (100m line of sight) and hopefully entice them into visiting their stand with an offer (like "FREE STICKERS AT ABC CARS STAND!"
or similar. Remember, all this actually is automating what you can already do on a mobile phone – but it means you can do it to more people, quicker, and not get bored sick doing it. Kids do this all day at college with backgrounds and stuff.
The dedicated boxes are quite expensive, but a software version would be far cheaper and would run off a laptop.
For interest sake, I looked around for some software to do this but haven’t found anything that worked reliably, or was any good to be honest. The other evening I decided to put something together myself, which works rather well and with a little more work would be a nice little product.
I think this would be great at shows, it’s not too invasive, it’s sending to a captive, focused audience etc.
Some people will hate it because it’s a bit forward, essentially its an electronic leaflet but still the issues of spamming come up so that’s why I’m posting this.
I’ve got a bit of a moral dilemma – by offering this tool out, it could be abused, but its not new, you can buy boxes to do the same already (all be it quite expensively, but better for permanent deployment).
What do you think? I know the technology is in use, and I can put together a nice little product to make it easy for people to use. Also, if anyone does know of software that does it and works, let me know - would save me from making this thing (so far, I have just done the sending bit, so its a proof of concept in a way).
I see it as a great tool if used in the right way, but, the issue of “facilitating spamming” bothers me a bit. Though the same can be said for Outlook, SMS sending systems, newsletter delivery systems, even megaphones and so on.
Important note – the software will ONLY send 1 message out per phone per campaign. The software also automatically maintains its own black list so any phones that reject the message more than once, or ignore it more than 3 times (some phones show the request on screen for a few seconds then it disappears) then the phone is automatically black listed and will not receive the message or requests again from that installation of the program, this stops it from sending to the same people repeatedly.
Sorry for loooooooong post, but no point posting this with no background info as I'm sure it would be taken out of context.
Comments and feedback welcome.
You can buy dedicated “boxes” that will scan for Bluetooth phones within range, and send them a message using normal Bluetooth functionality – such as a picture, text file, contact card etc. Phones with Bluetooth turned on, and set to visible, will show the message on screen, or show a “--- has sent you a file – accept/reject”. Some phones just pop it up right away and auto-accept, some ignore it altogether. It’s commonly referred to as “bluejacking”, its not any sort of hacking, but doing what the phones were designed to do – exchange things. Some pubs and clubs are already doing this with ads for special nights, drinks offers etc.
This has great appeal for trade shows / events where everyone in the room (such as the NEC) is interested in the same thing, wondering around with mobile phones. A user of such a system can get an advert to a good proportion of the people within range (100m line of sight) and hopefully entice them into visiting their stand with an offer (like "FREE STICKERS AT ABC CARS STAND!"
or similar. Remember, all this actually is automating what you can already do on a mobile phone – but it means you can do it to more people, quicker, and not get bored sick doing it. Kids do this all day at college with backgrounds and stuff. The dedicated boxes are quite expensive, but a software version would be far cheaper and would run off a laptop.
For interest sake, I looked around for some software to do this but haven’t found anything that worked reliably, or was any good to be honest. The other evening I decided to put something together myself, which works rather well and with a little more work would be a nice little product.
I think this would be great at shows, it’s not too invasive, it’s sending to a captive, focused audience etc.
Some people will hate it because it’s a bit forward, essentially its an electronic leaflet but still the issues of spamming come up so that’s why I’m posting this.
I’ve got a bit of a moral dilemma – by offering this tool out, it could be abused, but its not new, you can buy boxes to do the same already (all be it quite expensively, but better for permanent deployment).
What do you think? I know the technology is in use, and I can put together a nice little product to make it easy for people to use. Also, if anyone does know of software that does it and works, let me know - would save me from making this thing (so far, I have just done the sending bit, so its a proof of concept in a way).
I see it as a great tool if used in the right way, but, the issue of “facilitating spamming” bothers me a bit. Though the same can be said for Outlook, SMS sending systems, newsletter delivery systems, even megaphones and so on.
Important note – the software will ONLY send 1 message out per phone per campaign. The software also automatically maintains its own black list so any phones that reject the message more than once, or ignore it more than 3 times (some phones show the request on screen for a few seconds then it disappears) then the phone is automatically black listed and will not receive the message or requests again from that installation of the program, this stops it from sending to the same people repeatedly.
Sorry for loooooooong post, but no point posting this with no background info as I'm sure it would be taken out of context.
Comments and feedback welcome.
) No demo yet, I have made it, it works, but it’s not releasable yet. As a company we've made lots of other business software, it’s just a case of spending the necessary time to finish things off, at the moment it’s a shell that’s a proof of concept/core system.
I'm still um'ing and ar'ing over potential market and spam issue.
Testing the water I guess.
Sam
I'm still um'ing and ar'ing over potential market and spam issue.
Testing the water I guess.
Sam
cavanagh said:
I have a bluetooth software and device already to go pm me if interested
How much? (£ )
We have an existing customer who wants it - but I'm not developing it for a one-off sale (hence this post). If yours does the job and is at the right sort of price, I'm sure they would go for it.
Edited by s a m on Tuesday 27th February 21:47
hab1966 said:
I went to one of the early Bluetooth developer conferences and this idea was trotted out quite a lot. One scenario was for shops to have a unit by the door and send msgs to passing phones alerting users to bargains of the day etc.
Ive sent you a PM too.
Ive sent you a PM too.
I looked into that exact thing a while back (around 2002) with a small twist.
I found that due to blue-jacking a lot but not all by any means of people switch bluetooth off, rendering the technology somewhat pointless.
Another thought: are there any laws governing these messages? I know to receive picture or video messages you have to click to accept but with contact cards that's not always the case. Could you just sit next to the motorway at rush hour and send out thousand of links to your website?
If anyone is doing this then send me a PM.
If anyone is doing this then send me a PM.
We do actually have a product half built but I don't think the whole bluetooth idea as effective as it sounds.
I decided to drop it, despite putting a bit of time into it. Our product was almost ready to start selling but needed the manuals, packaging, marketing and so on to complete. Once I did some field testing, it was evident the idea was a bit flawed or at least the window of opportunity when every phone accepted them was gone.
The spam angle was too much of a risk. It was intended for trade shows etc, but you can't stop users from sitting at traffic lights or bridges and using it. I didn't like the idea of running the risk of getting the company labelled as unethical for a few grand in sales, nor the idea of something we made causing distractions to people while driving (phone makes odd bleep - etc).
I ran it on my laptop one afternoon when visiting a client in London. Walking through London Liverpool Street station it picked up several hundred devices but only delivered to a couple. The problem is that very few phones accept pictures, and most don't even accept the contact cards automatically (requires user input before showing any sort of custom message).
More and more phones come out of the factory with bluetooth settings designed to stop this sort of thing, which pretty much proves its just junk messages (which if abused, it is).
In my opinion its a bit of a waste of time, only likely to piss people off unless in just the right circumstances and even then your probably better off with a poster or leaflet.
I guess a wall mounted "black box" doing it 24/7 is different, clubs perhaps, but still relatively low delivery rates will reduce the effectiveness.
I decided to drop it, despite putting a bit of time into it. Our product was almost ready to start selling but needed the manuals, packaging, marketing and so on to complete. Once I did some field testing, it was evident the idea was a bit flawed or at least the window of opportunity when every phone accepted them was gone.
The spam angle was too much of a risk. It was intended for trade shows etc, but you can't stop users from sitting at traffic lights or bridges and using it. I didn't like the idea of running the risk of getting the company labelled as unethical for a few grand in sales, nor the idea of something we made causing distractions to people while driving (phone makes odd bleep - etc).
I ran it on my laptop one afternoon when visiting a client in London. Walking through London Liverpool Street station it picked up several hundred devices but only delivered to a couple. The problem is that very few phones accept pictures, and most don't even accept the contact cards automatically (requires user input before showing any sort of custom message).
More and more phones come out of the factory with bluetooth settings designed to stop this sort of thing, which pretty much proves its just junk messages (which if abused, it is).
In my opinion its a bit of a waste of time, only likely to piss people off unless in just the right circumstances and even then your probably better off with a poster or leaflet.
I guess a wall mounted "black box" doing it 24/7 is different, clubs perhaps, but still relatively low delivery rates will reduce the effectiveness.
Gassing Station | Business | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff