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[thebruce]

How can mobile media be further used in the ARG genre?

[FLmutant]

My friend, you fell for a marketing trick. That isn't a real article. That's a sales pitch that a company released as "free content" that other websites can reprint without charge. The key to noticing that is this: a real journalist will lead with their premise, a marketer with close with it:

[thebruce]

heh, well I jumped the gun on posting it obviously imbri moved it from general press to meta for general discussion, so all's well.

I posted it regardless of the product (as I'm sure you know), but just because it raises some interesting discussion points about the use of mobile media in viral marketing (and thus by extension, potential uses in grassroots ARGs and CF). Perhaps to scrap the marketing, the article should be quoted here and the link to sponge removed

And, I'm not saying mobile delivery hasn't been used (a lot) in previous campaigns, but recently the more visible uses have been fairly straightforward. My point was that there's a lot of potential ideas (some examples in the article) that open the door for more creative uses in projects in the future... =)

[Rogi Ocnorb]

If someone could marry-up the functionality of something like HPs mediascape offering with the mobile (GPS-enabled) market, the possibilities are limitless.

And... When are we going to see QR Codes or their equivalent, in the U.S.?

[vpisteve]

The problem with mobile right now: lack of platform standardization.

Pretty much the only things that really have a standard format on mobile right now are voice, SMS and to a certain extent MMS.

You want to talk about cool ARG uses with mobile? Get back to me when
GPS-enabled Mobile Google Maps becomes ubiquitous.

[Rekidk]

[notgordian]

I've got to second the QR Codes thing, Rogi. I got really excited because my campus apparently experimented with them for student orientation this year, but haven't seen cell phone companies jumping on the bandwagon yet.

It's a shame, too--McDonalds already has their nutrition labels printed out and ready to go on QR Code-labeled wrappers. One of my favorite parts about living in Japan was going around with the cell phone and checking out QR Codes on road signs, restaurants, and advertisements. Getting this would seriously be a major boon to so many developers, since the point-and-click method of satisfying curiosity would be an incredibly low threshold of entry for a target market that would probably be interested in this kind of stuff.

Of course, we would probably get inundated with a bunch more ads that make absolutely no sense just so they can have the stats on how many people "clicked through" to figure out what the heck was going on...

[thebruce]

just a quick addendum,
UK DirectNews picked up the article too. Nothing new, just summarizing the original sponge article (but without the covert marketing )

[FLmutant]

[thebruce]

*sigh* I didn't post this for the marketing aspect (and I'm sure that's not what you're saying I did), I posted it because it was just an editorial that raised some interesting points about the growing use of mobile handhelds in social netowrking, and how viral projects should make more use of it. It spawned a process of thoughts on the matter, prompting me to post it for discussion. Couldn't care less about sponge, or the goals of a news site - it was just the discussion point I wanted to bring up *shrug*.

I only just started watching news articles for certain topics, so I didn't go digging around for previous news/editorials about viral mobile media, or research the topic in detail... afaik there hasn't (recently, at least) been any thread discussing mobile potential in args and such, so I posted it, for discussion... that's all

really, if no one wants to talk about it, then it'll die, and I'm fine with that

Even a company trying to self-promote can raise some interesting points. Not that this article is raising anything fundamentally new, but there's no rule about raising a discussion about an idea that's been around for a while right?

I'm not trying to secretly market any product or anything

I'd just love to see more use of mobile media in ARGs, in creative ways, beyond strictly GPS and SMS for example. Perhaps the thread could spawn some ideas for current or potential PMs. Perhaps there's really nothing to discuss on the matter; I mean, it's not like there's two sides to the point at hand: does anyone think there shouldn't be more use of mobile media in ARGs and viral marketing?
*shrug*

take the thread for what it's worth

[FLmutant]

You make it sound like I'm pulling that from nowhere, but you started out the thread with:

[thebruce]

Ok, now we're getting somewhere

true, the title is a bit misleading. I was just naively looking for a catchy subject (the 'Next on Fox' cliche - which carries with it a sarcastic tone as well; in that light, the thread title could be interpreted as being critical of the article ) -- but I will change it. (One of my biggest problems is expressing my thoughts accurately - something I'm still working on, and why I'm not a public speaker or professional writer; even though ironically, I write for ARGN and frequently partake in ARGNetcasts)

You raise some interesting points of debate/disagreement in the article - legitimate for thread discussion, so I'm glad you pointed them out. Personally, what I took from the article was, as I mentioned, more towards the point of spawning potential ideas for mobile media in viral projects. I didn't mean to imply that I agreed with every point the author made (let alone supporting the covert marketing), but I see now I wasn't clear on that =)

Please don't feel you have to bow out; I hope things are cleared up somewhat sufficiently?

[thebruce]

actually, I am a bit curious... where was the implied

[FLmutant]

You know, I really even hate to dignify this slimeball by treating his arguments as legitimate. But let me show you what he means.

[FLmutant]