This section presents a service (MapQuest) and a product (Sony's Glastron) that foreshadow the emergences of WorldBoard. Both of these press releases came out in the latter half of 1996.
MapQuest Launches GeoCentric Advertising Program
(report by David Duberman)
MapQuest Publishing Group, a provider of mapping technology and services for Internet users and publishers, has introduced a geographically intelligent advertising platform. The product is designed to let businesses reach highly-targeted audiences one-to-one, based on each user's specific destination or selected content. As MapQuest site visitors interact with online maps, GeoCentric Advertising enables businesses to serve up ads that are relevant to the location the user is exploring. The MapQuest Web site can be found at <http://www.mapquest.com>.
MapQuest has developed a new technology to integrate with the NetGravity AdServer product. GeoCentric Advertising will reportedly enable businesses to provide banner ads and discount promotions to prequalified consumers as these users define and interact with their geographic area of interest while planning trips, researching business locations or requesting driving directions on the MapQuest site.
Expanding the concept of narrowcasting to one of the most important dimensions of marketing -- location -- MapQuest's GeoCentric Advertising allows businesses to reach customers based on their unique geographic criteria, in addition to traditional narrowcasting techniques such as domain and browser criteria.
MapQuest's proprietary geographic searching and database technology qualifies the consumer's destination and content interests, then interfaces with the NetGravity AdServer for display of the appropriate advertising image within the targeting and management tools of AdServer. Until now, local targeting on a broad regional, national or even worldwide scale has not been available with such geographic precision.
Here's how it works, according to MapQuest:
An advertiser supplies MapQuest with addresses for each business location, along with specific criteria for ad placement (e.g., within 10 miles of that address). This data is integrated into MapQuest's database. As an online user interacts with MapQuest maps, the GeoCentric ads are served up to consumers as follows:
- If the user clicks on a specific map location, MapQuest serves up the banner of the advertiser that has been defined for that location.
- If the user requests a specific category within MapQuest's "Places of Interest" feature (i.e., lodging, dining, attractions, recreation, education) and then clicks on a specific map location, MapQuest serves up the banner that is relevant to that category and location.
- If the user enters information for a business, street, city, state, or zip code that matches a particular advertiser's criteria, MapQuest serves up a banner for that business. Such keywords are entered when users are searching for a specific map view in the Interactive Atlas or requesting written driving directions.
Steve Cisler also points out that CitySearch is a Southern California firm setting
up local information systems (Pasadena, San Francisco, Research Triangle Park) where
the user can search by time, keyword, and location. For example, "Where on Thursdays
can I find Day Care within a 3 mile radius of my house?" or "What music events will
take place in S.F. in November?" Along with some of Guha's MCF work this becomes
a very interesting kind of service to look at. The point is location based information
is becoming big business.
Now in considering the feasibility of getting your information through glasses instead
of a computer screen, consider Sony's "electronic glasses" or Glasstron. Imagine
Glasstron connected to a portable wireless WebTV system (available for about $250
purchase price, plus $20 per month service -- by the way this is the model for the future:
pay and keep paying for the services).
Sony Films: This Time It's Personal
(report from Reuters)
Japanese electronics giant Sony is to launch a personal liquid crystal display (LCD) monitor later this month that will allow individual viewing of movies and video discs.
The PLM-50 Glasstron, to be introduced in Japan on June 21st, will feature a display monitor contained in special headgear, and play back images from a videocassette recorder or a video compact disc (CD) player. Stereo earphones will relay the sound. Used in conjunction with a battery pack and a lightweight CD player, the new product, like the Sony Walkman, is a portable, individual entertainment system that viewers can use without disturbing those around them, Sony said.
It measures 20 cm (7.9 inches) by 12 cm (4.7 inches) by 26 cm (10.2 inches), weighs 310 grams (11 ounces) and will be priced at 518 sterling. By changing the degree of transparency of the liquid crystal shutter, viewers can enjoy the impression of being in a cinema or alternatively, of watching a screen hanging in mid-air, Sony said. With a lithium-ion battery pack, the system allows two hours and 20 minutes of continuous playback in a portable setting.
Sony plans to produce 5,000 of the LCD monitors a month and may consider marketing the monitor outside Japan if it is well received. A Sony spokesman said the company would be the first to introduce this kind of personal monitor to the huge Japanese consumer electronics market, although several companies have developed headmounted monitors in the United States.
Sony also announced that it will launch a new portable video CD player, priced at 36,000 yen that could be used in conjunction with the portable LCD unit. The new portable video compact disc player can provide four hours of playback with a lithium-ion rechargeable battery and will be produced at a rate of 4,000 players a month.
Sony said it expected the Japanese market for video CD-related products in 1996 to reach four million units, four times as many as last year.
The emergence of new planetary systems for associating information with places creates
some intriguing business opportunities especially in the area of designing information
spaces that overlay and co-register with physical parts of the world. Improved ways to associate information with places seem near at hand because of the convergence
of three underpinning technologies: (1) client devices with "location sense" that can
ascertain quite precisely where they are at all times (we have all seen rental cars
with GPS or the portable GPS systems used by hikers (check out the Trimble's web site), (2) global wireless point-to-point communication systems accessing the World Wide Web (WWW) and other information sources, and (3) client devices
with "context sense" that allow the real world and the digital world to blend in increasingly
seamless ways from a user's perspective.