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Wow, after watching this video my perception of the future just dramatically changed. I know we all say we live in a digital world; everyone is connected to the internet, we all have cell phones, and pretty much everyone I know is connected to a social network of some sort.

I’d like to think I have a good sense of what the future looks like, but Pranav Mistry’s ground breaking work with SixthSense technology has really changed what I thought was possible and opened my eyes to a future I hadn’t fully realized. A while ago I got excited about Microsoft surface that uses similar technologies but I never thought we’d be able to combine the use of everyday objects into our digital life and vice-versa so quickly and in so many ways (demonstrated in the video).

Click to Watch the video all the way!

Oh did I mention Pranav is providing this technology open source to the world.

Published on February 24th, MobileMarketer.com 

Distressed inventory in the travel business is the unsold hotel rooms and airplane seats that become available at the last minute on travel Web sites at fire-sale prices.

But a hotel manager in the near future could be relying on a proximity-based bidding network to convert a cancellation into a booking.

Today, travel brands typically attract consumers to peruse these bargain-priced goodies by dumping them on a travel portal – hotwire.com, priceline.com, Orbitz – or by sending promotional emails and text alerts to email addresses and mobile phones.

Yet a proximity-based marketing network could advertise discounted rooms to travelers driving along the interstate when they are just miles from the property. Room offers could be dispatched to car navigation systems and trigger an alert on the screen.

Road warriors who need a place to stay between sales calls and like the price can follow directions on their Garmin or TomTom to speed-dial on their mobile phones and book a room.

Hotel loyalty card members – Priority Card, Starwood – can pre-set preferences for room types and price these holds based on when they are travelling in order to get approved text, email, phone or OnStar alerts.

The technology to pull off this transaction hasn’t been implemented yet. But the transformational marketing power of proximity-based apps is coming and it will move people to take action.

One form of this advance already is operating in Japan and was exported recently to the United States.

The company, AdLocal, pushes messages to the GPS-enabled and 3G mobile phones of people who have opted into the network.

Retailers and restaurant operators sign up for the channel that sends ads and digital coupons whenever the handsets of consumer subscribers are within four kilometers of their business.

Advertisers also can choose to send mobile messages when subscribers are near the address of a competitor or in a neighborhood they want to target.

Proximity-based applications are spreading. For some time now, fans of social networks have been loading apps to their phones that broadcast their location and messages to friends, who were pre-registered or pre-invited to participate, when they are nearby.

Technophiles are synchronizing their home and office computers with mobile phones through free apps downloaded from the Web.

One called Home Zone enables password entry and calls up a screen saver when the user walks away with his or her phone from the Mac computer. When the user and phone return, the app disables password entry and stops the screen saver.

Home Zone also enables people to set up the software to play iTunes selections, preset the volume, open files and activate the networks their computer taps into just by coming and going with their phone.

We carry our phones almost everywhere. So it’s plausible to imagine carmakers contemplating a Bluetooth proximity app that starts a car as its driver approaches the vehicle. How about home security systems that automatically turn on the house lights and deactivate alarm systems as returning homeowners walk toward their front door?

So why not a marketing channel that engages people when they are near your business but too far away to see the signs posted on your storefront?

You can bet there is a horse race underway between the Web portals, geo-targeting agencies, wireless networks, handset providers and many others to deliver the Holy Grail of locally targeted advertising and fulfillment.

Raj Choudhury is Atlanta-based vice president of digital services atEngauge Digital. Reach him at rchoudhury@engauge.com.

I recently wrote a guest column for MobileMarketer.com. The topic was making sure that SMS messages comply with carrier rules – something that seems straightforward … however, it’s anything but. This topic is definitely something I think our blog readers will find interesting, so you’ll find the article below.

Also, make sure to the check out MobileMarketer.com – it’s a terrific resource for mobile marketing, media and commerce.

Ensure SMS messages comply with carrier rules

Ensuring your SMS messages are compliant with carrier rules is not as straightforward as you would think.

The level of inconsistency and mixed interpretation is mainly due to a lack of oversight and standardization in the industry.

In order to avoid costly lawsuits such as Timberland’s $7 million, carriers have attempted to protect themselves, which is ultimately positive for consumers, but a pain for marketers.

When sending SMS messages to subscribers across multiple carriers – AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, et cetera – it is very difficult to conform to the exact requirements without knowing which carrier each subscriber is using.

For example, carriers require an opt-out message such as “Text STOP to Unsubscribe” and a message telling subscribers they might get charged for the SMS.

In this instance, the exact requirement from Verizon is, “Standard message charges apply” and for T-Mobile it is, “Other charges may apply.”

Not knowing which carrier the subscriber is using makes it easy to violate this requirement.

To be fair, I am sure the carriers lend a blind eye to which version you use as long as it says something close, but technically, you may be breaking one or more carrier’s requirements.

It’s standard to ensure that these types of messages appear on initial subscription confirmation and system transaction messages, such as “text HELP” and “text STOP.”

Most marketers assume that once they have provided this initial notification to the subscriber, it is acceptable to use the full 160-character message allotment for their message. However, this is not quite the case.

An examination of what Verizon and T-Mobile require for Mobile Originated (“MO”) messages or transaction responses (that is, someone texts in a keyword and receives a response), reveals that these messages must include the “Standard message charges apply” for Verizon and “Other charges may apply” for T-Mobile in their total characters.

Effectively, what this does is reduce the available characters from 160 to 128 in the case of the Verizon example, if you add a space or hyphen to separate this from the rest of the message (“-Standard message charges apply.”).

This adds up to about 20 percent less copy. If you require as many characters as possible don’t follow this clause, I’d suggest using acronyms instead; “-StdMsgChrgsAply” or “-OthChrgsMayAply” which is 16 characters, or 10 percent of the 160-character allocation.

To illustrate this point, here is a hypothetical situation.

A commercial airline could provide customers a free flight-information service. Subscribers might text their flight number “DL323″ to 33581 and receive a message back on the status of the flight.

Because this is considered an MO, the commercial airline must put “Standard message charges apply” at the end of every message, even if the subscriber has SMS’d 10 times in the same day to get the flight status.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if only one carrier has a rule and the others don’t.

To be safe, you’re better off ensuring all messages conform to the tightest of requirements, especially if you don’t know the exact carrier the subscriber is using and you want to avoid complex business rules with your SMS technology provider.

Furthermore, it is likely other carriers will follow suit soon and perhaps require tighter rules on all SMS messages regardless of the type of message.

Ideally, the industry needs to receive consistent standards and regulations in order to simplify SMS message requirements.

If you think about it, it’s not that different than the inconsistent ISP rules we had for email marketing before CAN SPAM.

I hate to say it, but perhaps we may need more lawsuits before SMS spammers destroy this medium, and carriers get even more confusing.

Amy Griswold and I just attended the sixth annual SilverPOP conference at Stone Mountain last week (05/13/2008). Like most vendor-customer conferences, I’m often somewhat skeptical about what I’m going to learn about email marketing in general. Most of the time, I attend these conferences to better understand new features that are being released, and to gauge their product road map so we can align the agency to take advantage of the tool in the future.

As we listened to the Keynote speaker, Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity.com and chairman of Kayak.com), I was pleased to hear his insights on his management style and trends he see’s in marketing in general. What I wasn’t expecting was a very simple tactic he mentioned that I’d never really considered, but made a lot of sense.

Terry termed this “Snooze Alarm” for your email campaigns. Essentially, we all use some level of frequency control on campaigns, as well as behavioral triggers to determine when we market to customers via email.

In Terry’s case, a travel email campaign might be sent based on a monthly communications, seasonal events, etc. His “snooze alarm” tactic basically stated that if someone JUST bought from your brand (i.e. a flight ticket), then remove them from your normal marketing email communications, as the likelihood of them buying another flight ticket is extremely low. In other words, give them a break before marketing the same type of product.

Of course, it’s still OK to upsell the client on other products if it makes sense. But the general idea of this tactic is to reduce unneeded email communications. The net effect of this tactic should result in higher open rates and click-through-rates (CTR), and ultimately higher conversion rates. Additionally, you’ll also reduce media cost associated with an Email Service Provider (ESP), as your overall email volume will reduce.

It’s so simple, I can’t think of a good reason not to implement this tactic, apart from possible business intelligence issues coming from your CRM, ecommerce and ESP systems. But if you’re able to get the data and your systems to allow this level of list segmentation, then your golden!

It somehow feels wrong to promote Microsoft in general, but lately I’ve been wowed by some of their innovative products and software. I expect this out of Apple or Google, but when I saw previews online of Microsoft Surface from CES 2008 earlier in the year, I was wowed. It also got me wondering if this might ever become commonplace in our lives.

If you’ve never seen Microsoft Surface check out the video below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP5y7yp06n0]

AT&T has already started to roll these units out at some of their wireless stores, so it’s well worth a visit to check it out; and while you’re there, give yourself another reason to play with the iPhone.

When I began writing this post, my intent was to just share a cool new toy with everyone, but what really dawned on me was how fast things were changing, and how as an agency we’d be at the forefront designing these new types of experiences for consumers.

Ten years ago as a start-up agency, my universe was fairly limited to websites, emails, and the very sexy work of corporate extranets. Now we are diving into Second life, Facebook apps, mobile apps, and hopefully (with the blessing of a nice client) Microsoft Surface experiences. Digital experiences are becoming increasingly important. As an agency, the way we create strategies and design and develop them to their full potential needs to change and adapt all the time.

It’s fair to say that agencies sometimes dive into unknown territories – were no case studies exist, no proven numbers. It’s always a risk for both the client and the agency to dive into uncharted waters, but rewards are high when you nail it. The point I’m trying to make is that we, with our smart people and unbelievable clients, could in the near future have an opportunity to work on a project the involves Microsoft Surface or any other progressive digital experience. I guess this is why we all love working for an agency like Engauge, it’s the chance to work on something others might only read about.

If you want to get wowed by another Microsoft product check out Photosynth, it will blow you away.