Mobile Behavior: an Omnicom Group Company

Urban Speaker is an upcoming art exhibit by media architect Carlos J. Gómez de Llarena. On display during this weekend's Conflux Festival, it promises to demonstrate the new possibilities that mobile technology brings to urban spaces.

From the Urban Speaker website:

The Urban Speaker resembles construction signage and blends in with its urban surroundings. It consists of a tripod with an amplified loudspeaker, smartphone, battery and a traffic sign. The signage instructs passersby to dial a phone number to speak in public. Users who place the call get an automatic answer and can speak their mind for sixty seconds after which the call is terminated.

A QR (Quick Response) barcode on the sign allows some mobile phones to instantly access the urbanspeaker.mobi website for location, event and other details as well as quick dialing of the installation’s phone.

Media has been democratized online, giving a voice and a platform to anyone who wants.  By providing people with an instant stage for "mass" communication tool in real life, the system explores the creation of “urban media space" and raises questions: In an age of constant communication, what does "public" mean? What is "noise"? How is our experience of personal and social communication altered by context? While abstract, the project is also thought provoking (hey, this is art after all).

Visit the installation on Friday October 8^th from 3pm-7pm in Tompkins Square Park, on the 7^th St side between Avenues A & B.

1. FourScore Location-based Marketing Analytics http://bit.ly/9rNRpI

2. Using Multiple Screens To Enhance Viewing Experience http://bit.ly/a961dY

3. E-commerce takes instant liking to Facebook button http://bit.ly/cJTg2O

4. Barcode Scanning Up 700% This Year http://bit.ly/9V4KM6

5. Nintendo Mii characters can be converted into a QR code http://bit.ly/cQHoXQ

6. Verdict's in on ABC's 'My Generation' IPad App http://bit.ly/cujmhH

7. Textaurant Lets You Digitally Wait In Line For Restaurants http://bit.ly/cM8KQE

8. The Mobile Apps That Affluents Download http://bit.ly/c81E9d

9. Jason Schwartzman Introduces The New Yorker iPad App http://nyr.kr/cbk6k

10. Mobilize 2010: Touch Has Won the Interface War http://bit.ly/ag7Nik

Tweetworthy is a weekly roundup of the most shared tweets from @MobileBehavior. You can follow us on Twitter here.

1. Cartoon: Captain, I'm Picking up Something on the Sensors http://bit.ly/cogiSO

2. E*Trade Financial exec discusses mobile strategy http://bit.ly/bFhy28

3. Why Many Teens Are Moving on from Facebook http://bit.ly/91T1IE

4. Barcodes: Calvin Klein QR Presents Uncensored Content http://bit.ly/cK6jiU

5. HP launches "SiteonMobile" enabling users to browse the Web Through SMS http://bit.ly/cXKERD

6. Women Feel Need to Be ‘Always On’ http://bit.ly/9rj4RE

7. Every user a developer, part II http://bit.ly/c9rJ9M

8. KDDI Light Pool Uses Phone Exterior for Glanceable Data Visualization http://bit.ly/aABn86

9. Nokia's history of mobile. "Know our past. Create the future..." http://bit.ly/biQr6s

10. Spotify Founder Daniel Ek: "The MP3 File has Become the URL" http://bit.ly/dvH3nX

Tweetworthy is a weekly roundup of the most shared tweets from @MobileBehavior. You can follow us on Twitter here.

While we wait for QR codes to take off, there is a huge opportunity for brands to use the barcodes that are already on products and turn them into social media.

One way to do this is through an app called Stickybits, which we wrote about back in April after its launch at SXSW. The app lets users scan and attach media to barcodes, creating a path from physical product to digital media. People connect around objects and often share stories about them, which is essentially what Stickybits enables. You can add a digital picture, a video, or text to a product's barcode, which other people can see when they scan the same barcode with the app on their phone.

Advertising is all about stories as well, so why not attach a brand's stories to a barcode? To demonstrate this idea, we took a can of Diet Pepsi and attached branded wallpapers, nutritional facts, and information on their Pepsi Refresh campaign through Stickybits. (Note: we didn't attach things twice, the app is a bit buggy.)

This weekend we got a number of emails from informing us that "pepsico attached a new bit" to the 'Pepsi 12 oz can' we were using. This turned out to be an "official bit" from the brand -- a video about the storytelling power of barcodes.

Stickybits founder Seth Goldstein announced these “official bits” at the Conversational Marketing Summit in New York City, and that Pepsi is signed up as the first sponsor. Similar to the paid search model, Pepsi paid for their bits to get the "official" stamp and appear on the top of results pages.

According to Techcrunch, Goldstein described the progression of media on the Internet at the conference:

In 1996, Webpages became media. In 2001, search became media. In 2005, people became media. In 2007, status updates became media. Last year, places became media. And in 2010, he predicts, objects will become media.

This is part of the trend we've been following known as the "Internet of Things," wherein physical objects are connected to the web. Digital is now freeing up physical media to play a different role than it ever has before, and mobile phones are an important piece of this puzzle, enabling users – and brands -- to annotate the world around them.

1. This Is Apple's Next iPhone - Iphone 4 http://j.mp/aAq3Kl

2. Barcodes: Stripey Lines iPhone App Pushes Price Comparison With Wishlists http://j.mp/acOe3S

3. Perspective: IDEO’s Robert Suarez on Mobile and Human-Centered Design http://j.mp/aiRiBE

4. Checking in with QR Code to See a Film http://j.mp/d4T9TO

5. Facebook Presence: RFID Brings Digital Identity To The Physical World http://j.mp/bGLdFk

6. Anttenna - Craigslist + Foursquare + Twitter http://j.mp/d53lbu

7. Urban Sensing: Building Systems For Mobile Crowdsourcing  http://j.mp/b7AhS5

8. 54% of American teens text everyday; 33% use over 100 texts per day http://j.mp/9k8AeX

9. Future: Cell Phones As Personal Information Filters http://j.mp/dsxYCC

10. M-Health: Blue Flow Mobile Sensor Would Monitor Asthma Conditions http://j.mp/98NMaO

Tweetworthy is a weekly roundup of the most shared tweets from @MobileBehavior. You can follow us on Twitter here.

The trend is clear: Digital is breaking free. The tethered desktop is old thinking; interactivity is everywhere now. At SXSW Interactive 2010 we saw this trend continue.

Barcodes were everywhere; seen on t-shirts, stickers, and flyers, in all shapes and sizes. Upon checking in at SXSW, attendees were given a name badge with a QR code printed on it. When you met someone at the event, you could let them scan your badge using an app like i-nigma or bee tag, and they would automatically be following you on my.SXSW, a social network set up for the event. There they could message you or access your contact information, essentially replacing the business card.

Several startups were there promoting new platforms and use cases for barcodes. Qyoo provides a new breed of barcodes which, when scanned, can pull up video and other media. Stickybits essentially hijacks the world of barcodes, letting users scan and attach social media to everyday objects. Where there aren’t barcodes, the service provides generated codes. Users can purchase stickers online or print them for free directly from the website.  Through a partnership with SimpleGeo, Stickybits can detect and map when and where barcodes are scanned. Scanners can even "check in" on Foursquare through the barcode.

While there are currently no standards, the intersection of all these platforms lies in the idea of a connected, annotated reality. Maps, Books, Spimes, and Paper: Post-Digital Media Design was a panel about fusing the Internet with traditional media. Through mobile paths such as barcodes, a new dimension is brought to the permanence of a physical book. In the book "Baked In," Twitter hashtags are included at the end of each chapter. With this, readers are connected in ways like never before. Digital is not killing print, but rather it is freeing up physical media to play a different role. Mobile phones are an important piece of this puzzle, enabling users to plug-in to the annotated world.

Barcoo is a German barcode scanning app that provides shoppers with detailed information about how environmentally friendly a brand is. By scanning an everyday UPC code, users can learn about how a company treats its workers or its carbon footprint. Most shoppers say they are critical consumers, Barcoo is designed to make fact finding and responsible in-store decision making that much easier.

This is yet another example of barcode hijacking, where a mobile app lets users retrieve information (other than intended) from an object. Stickybits does this, but also lets users attach their own social media for others to view. Thanks to smart devices and the app economy, the barcode has become a platform for something even greater than originally intended, it is now an open, programmable information system for objects.

[via bizreport]