Hasta La Gadget!

The folks over at Microsoft Advertising are quite fond of their latest brainchild, so much so that they’re calling the Kinect-enabled advertising platform “irresistibly interactive.” NUAds — which snaked the NU in NUI — feeds off our need for interactivity, allowing advertisers to lure us in by enabling points of gesture and voice control. Think the latest Snuggie spot is super cool? Just say “Xbox, Tweet,” and all your friends will know it. Want to know more about Mariah Carey’s latest fragrance? Say “Xbox, More,” and the info is all yours. Wondering where you can pick up a box of Nad’s edible hair remover? Say “Xbox, Near Me,” and you’ll get a text with the location of the closest Nad’s retailer. Want to vote on the hottest new Bratz doll? Give your girl a thumbs up. So Microsoft may have engaged a host of more respectable partners, namely Adidas, NBC, and Coca Cola, for its demo of the voice and gesture-enabled advertising platform yesterday, and NUAds does indeed serve up promotions in an entirely new way, but will it really change how we view the boob tube for good? Check out the video demo after the break, and weigh in the comments below.

Continue reading Microsoft’s NUAds interactive advertising to harness powers of Kinect, ‘change television as we know it’

Microsoft’s NUAds interactive advertising to harness powers of Kinect, ‘change television as we know it’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TV viewers are a famously fickle bunch, which tends to drive TV advertisers crazy. The prevalent theory remains that skipping past ads using a pesky DVR is the biggest enemy of marketers, but new research has once again contradicted that received wisdom. The IPG Media Lab in Los Angeles pulled together a representative group of 48 TV and online video viewers and asked them to sit through some programming while equipped with the usual “devices or distractions” that accompany their viewing habits. Central to the study was the measurement of time each person spent facing the screen and how engaged they were with the content. The first thing noted was that 94 percent of TV viewers and 73 percent of online video consumers used some other form of media to augment their visual entertainment. Smartphones were the most common, with 60 percent of test subjects resorting to their handset while gawking at the TV. That’s resulted in a mediocre 52 percent attention level during actual programs and 37 percent during ads. In other words, two thirds of the time, commercials are being ignored and smartphones are helping people with that heinous behavior. Ironically, fast-forwarding adverts using a DVR garnered attention levels that were 12 percent higher, mostly because people were trying to make sure they didn’t skip too far ahead. Damn, why does reality have to be all complex and stuff?

Smartphones, not DVRs, are the biggest threat to TV adverts originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 May 2011 08:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been one heck of a week for e-readers, with a new $139 touchscreen Nook in town and a $129 finger-friendly Kobo as well. What’s Amazon going to do about the newfound competition? Simply lower the price of its best-selling Kindle 3G to $164. Well, perhaps “lower” isn’t quite the right word, because you’ll simply be paying by different means: the new Kindle 3G with Special Offers will be the company’s second e-reader to feature built-in advertising. If you’re shy on cash, though, we suppose viewing a few ads is a small price to pay for cheaper Whispernet. PR after the break.

Continue reading Kindle 3G gets ad-supported $164 version, basically sells your eyeballs for a $25 discount

Kindle 3G gets ad-supported $164 version, basically sells your eyeballs for a $25 discount originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 May 2011 20:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon will sell you an ad-supported Kindle for $114

Can’t afford a Kindle? Amazon will knock $25 off the price of the Wi-Fi model if you can stomach compulsory ads.

The new “Kindle with Special Offers” costs $114. In exchange for the price cut, Amazon will replace screensavers with ads, and put banners on the home page. The ads will not show up when you’re reading a book.

The initial run of screensaver ads will be sponsored by Buick, Procter & Gamble, Visa, and Chase, and Amazon will also drop its own special offers into the mix. From the examples, Amazon’s offers look pretty good. As for the third-party ads, they will be presented to the public for review before being used as screensavers. This will be done via an upcoming app called AdMash, which will show prospective ads to users and allow them to vote on which ones will make it to the front page.

It’s a curious move, and devilishly clever. It puts static ads onto the screens of potentially millions of Kindle’s when they’re not in use, where they can be seen by any passerby. Even the AdMash app is really a way of showing more ads to those who use it to vote. Amazon, along with its partners, is clearly getting its money’s worth.

And what of the buyers? It’s a curious group of consumers that wants a Kindle enough to pay $114, but can’t spring for $25 more to remove the ads. How are they going to buy books? And is it really worth turning your ebook reader into a mobile billboard for the price of a dinner? After all, the ads will haunt you for the life of the device. And if you are trying to save money, then its likely you’ll be hanging on to it for a long while.

There’s another downside, too. One of the greatest things about the Kindle is that you can read any old junk and nobody will know. All they see is the standard screensaver, when you’re really reading the collected works of Danielle Steel. Now all kinds of embarrassing spam could show up there. Still, I guess anything’s better than that godawful Emily Dickinson screensaver.

Kindle with Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers [Amazon]

See Also:

• Kindle Can Now Buy, Download Audio Books Over Wi-Fi
• Read (Some of) Your Own Books on Kindle for iPad
• Amazon Launches Kindle Singles, Saves Long-Form Journalism …

Here’s a scenario: what if we told you that your next Kindle could be had for $25 less than retail? What if we told you it came from the rear of a nondescript white van? Or what if we told you that you’d first need to sign up for 842 email marketing scams? Thankfully, none of those scenarios are ones we’re looking to tell you about. Instead, we’re here to introduce you to the world’s first ad-supported Kindle, going on sale within Target and Best Buy locations for $114. That represents a gentle $25 savings compared to the price of today’s cheapest Kindle, but those 2500 pennies don’t come free — you’ll be asked to endure “advertisements on the bottom of the device’s home page and on its screen savers.” Furthermore, it sets a new precedent in the gadget arena that could very well carry over to ad-discounted tablets, netbooks, PMPs, and who knows what else. At this point, Buick, Olay and Visa will be advertising, and we get the impression that said list will bloom in due time. It’s hard to say just how intrusive they’ll be, but Kindle director Jay Marine seems to think that “customers are going to love it.”

We aren’t so sure. While it’s crystal clear that the general populace adores coupon cutting, it seems problematic to us to ship a pair of identical products that cost within $25 of one another and expect Joe Sixpack to grok the difference. In fact, we’re guessing that this will inevitably lead to consumer complaints from those who can’t figure out why their “on sale Kindle” isn’t nearly as enjoyable to read as “Bob’s Kindle… that he found during a sale.” At any rate, a demo of the new device displayed a screen saver deal “where customers would pay $10 for a $20 gift card to Amazon,” and while no ads will appear in e-books, there’s still “a clear advertisement” along the bottom of the home screen. All that said, here’s the key feature that Amazon’s seemingly overlooking: an option in the software to pay back the $25 a customer skimped on to do away with the ads on their ad-supported e-reader. Solves the buyer’s remorse problem, at least.

Update: And it’s official — PR’s after the break!

Continue reading Ad-supported Kindle to ship May 3rd: saves $25, includes lot of enticement

Ad-supported Kindle to ship May 3rd: saves $25, includes lot of enticement originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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