Chromecast continues to bolster its offerings; after recently adding stalwarts NBA to its ever-growing list of streamed options, it announced that, just in time for this baseball season, MLB.TV will be available on the streaming platform. Once users download the required updates they’ll be able to download MLB.TV on the device and stream from there. That said, users will have to buy a subscription to MLB, which doesn’t come cheap: $24.99 per month or $129.99 for the entire season (which includes At Bat radio subscription as well). As the streaming stick continues to fill out as expected, it is becoming a cheaper, more accessible version of the Roku – and ultimately, cable TV.
Category: Percolate
Twitter Reveals Mobile App Install Ads
After months of talk about whether Twitter was going to delve deeply into mobile marketing, the company announced that it will debut mobile app install ads as a beta product today. The ads will run as a part of Twitter’s mobile app as well as on MoPub, Twitter’s recently accrued mobile ad network. The goal, of course, is to build revenues across the board as Twitter continues to struggle to post revenues after its IPO, and today’s news will give the company’s investors hope that Twitter is heading in the right direction. Twitter has a few partners immediately lined up for the release, including Spotify, HotelTonight, Deezer, Get Taxi, and others.
Starwood Releases Google Glass App
Google Glass already has a host of third-party apps, but Starwood is one of the first major brands to develop on the platform. Starwood’s app will let users search and book hotel rooms, view photos of the resorts and even get turn-by-turn directions to a location. Glass just closed their one-day public sale Tuesday, but with an estimated 10,000 Glass in use prior, Starwood can’t be reaching that large of an audience. They are likely making an investment in the future of Glass and getting some nice PR in the process.
Condé Nast Embraces native
Google Glass Patents Contact Lens Camera
Could Glass come to contacts? It’s looking that way, as a new patent from Google suggests they’re working on visual augmentation without glasses at all, suggesting that the Glass computer system could in fact be shrunk small enough to fit on the film of a contact lens. The device will allow users to capture video from the lens itself without obstructing their field of view. It could bring some muscle to the promise of medical help for patients who are unable to use Google Glass – for instance, it could recognize the faces of people that partially blind people can’t see. As well, Google has said it wants to help diabetes patients monitor their glucose levels by checking the moisture within their eyes. As technology tries to paint itself in a positive light, Google’s lens could be a big step towards proving that technology can help drastically improve the lives of those with serious medical ailments.
Carlsberg’s Instagram Campaign Links Bars & Drinkers
A new Carlsberg campaign in Denmark, called #happybeertime, aims to bring bars and their patrons closer together over social networks. Dubbed “Happy Hour 2.0,” the beer company extended happy hour via Instagram and hashtag mentions. Bar-goers upload their photos to Instagram and tag them with the name of the bar and #happybeertime, and a counter displayed above the bar fills up with more time for half-priced beer, effectively adding a few more minutes to happy hour. Bars add specially hacked HDMI sticks to HDTV’s to make it work, and as a result their name is shared across the social network. The goal, of course, is to bridge online and offline, brick-and-mortar and digital landscapes into one effective solution that brings customers closer to the bars while creating organic marketing for the bars. And by exploiting two major consumer trends – happy hour and Instagram sharing – Carlsberg is cashing in on serendipitous sharing that drives brand engagement.
CarPlay Comes To Pioneer
inMarket & Epicurious Launch In-Store Beacon Network
The Beacon ecosystem is beginning to take shape as brands, advertisers, and retailers realize the value thy can offer – from both a research and a financial perspective. inMarket is acting as the conduit between venues and apps–the two necessary players in the Beacon space to enable proximity based messaging. Now Epicurious, one of the most popular cooking and recipe apps, is part of their network which plans to expand to 30,000 beacons in grocery stores across the nation. Users who have downloaded the Epicurious app on iOS will be shown information on deals for partner products – and will also be tracked in-store to get a sense of where users are in the space, where the footpaths are, and so forth. It’s not unfathomable to imagine users getting notifications when they’re inside an inMarket retail location, as well as discounts on recipes users have bookmarked. Though none of the specific details on how the app might function have been disclosed yet, the move pushes inMarket and Epicurious to the forefront of the beacon and consumer analysis space.
TV’s False Dawn
TV’s long demise has let off a bit in recent months. Though many looped into the web believe it’s only a matter of time before traditional TV becomes a thing of the past, the medium is still clinging on to life. Primetime TV ratings were up by 4% during the first three months of 2014, which is it’s best performance since 2007; it’s the first time TV has grown at all in a year. It might be a false positive, though: analysts attribute the positive blip to a confluence of big-name events all happening at the same time. In this case, the Olympics, the Oscars, the NFL playoffs and the NCAA tournament all happened in the first quarter of 2014, in addition to the notoriously cold and long winter. The real question is if television can keep the trend going – it’s been trending downwards, and if the data are to be believed, this is just a brief blip on television’s long way out.
Driving Curve Is An Entry Level Car Tracker
The connected car is a thing of the present – not the future. Already, news-making apps like Automatic and Dash have promised to keep track of cars and driving habits, uploading statics and data to the web. Those apps, though, generally work through Bluetooth on-board devices that leverage ports in the car under the steering wheel. Driving Curve, the latest iteration of these connected car apps, wants to bring the benefits of quantized driving experiences to non-tech-savvy users by removing the plug-in adapter feature found with many other car trackers. Instead, Driving Curve utilizes data from GPS satellites and the iPhone’s motion sensors to keep track of acceleration information, braking speed, fuel usage, and the distance of the route. Driving Curve’s founders have said that they’re open to monetization of the platform, and are presently looking to partner with brands and companies who will leverage the data they collect in meaningful ways. As of yet, they’re looking to turn driving into a gamified activity, awarding points for safe driving in comparison to other users. And, you have to be connected to the Internet to get the most out of the app: it’ll only work with wifi. Nonetheless, it’s a great way to take some of the technological barriers out of the way of the era of the connected, quantified car experience.
