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Advertising Portables

Adobe's CTO Pitches 'Apps Near You' Concept 98

Posted by timothy from the eula-be-sorry dept.
angry tapir writes "Next-generation applications will be location-specific, offering users information and features related to where they are at any given moment, Adobe Systems CTO Kevin Lynch, said at the Open Mobile Summit conference. 'Apps near you,' as he called the idea, would pop up on mobile screens when a user is close to a specific location. Lynch showed the example of someone with a Samsung tablet visiting a museum and being able to download a guide application."
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Adobe's CTO Pitches 'Apps Near You' Concept More

Adobe's CTO Pitches 'Apps Near You' Concept

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  • Spam (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BasilBrush ( 643681 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2011 @04:11AM (#36433534)

    Whilst there are useful examples for local apps, the most common thing is going to be advertising brochures.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Chrisq ( 894406 )

      Whilst there are useful examples for local apps, the most common thing is going to be advertising brochures.

      Like the sites that say "dozens of hot girls in <your town> are waiting to meet you".

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Whalou ( 721698 )
        It's more like: "dozens of hot girls in <the town geo-located at your internet facing IP> are waiting to meet you.

        • It's more like: "dozens of hot girls in <the town geo-located at your internet facing IP> are waiting to meet you.

          My favourites are the ones that go "hi, I'm in New York too! Wanna hook up tonight?"
          I live in the UK, it's cost me a fucking fortune in airfares
          *rimshot*

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      he just invented bluetooth spamming again! REJOICE!

    • The best thing to do with advertising in the modern world is to learn to see through it and to ignore stuff that you don't want. This is a harder discipline to learn than to state, but it is worthwhile.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jhoegl ( 638955 )
        Nah, Im just going to invent an Adblock for the real world.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        Welcome to the Kevin Lynch effect. Think of it as the Ken Burns effect but more advertising friendly.
        It dramatically directs the eyes of the cell phone user over the locked full screen ad to get the desired financial response.

      • I don't want any of it. The best way to deal with it is to block it where possible. Adblock on a browser and a spam filter on email.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      We already have Bluetooth spamming, it just doesn't work that well because most people have their device set to non-discoverable. A place I worked still got a few hundred hits a day on the local high street with around 5% of users accepting the image download.

      All this appears to be is a way to force ads onto devices. You can already get the museum guide via a QR code or WiFi, but those are voluntary and thus not acceptable for marketing.

  • many sites have location-aware store finders, etc. You can do a location aware serach [blogspot.com] for "museum brochure" and probably get the same result.

    I smell apple marketing something that is already being done as somehow being their "new innovation"

    • I'm glad I'm not the only one who misread Adobe as Apple.

    • Re:What's new (Score:5, Interesting)

      by alostpacket ( 1972110 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2011 @04:53AM (#36433668) Homepage
      It's interesting to me how much location-aware and social are being pushed out as features for users. Interesting in that it seems to me like very little value is being created for the user. Maybe it's just me, but social and locatioan aware stuff seems so lacking in innovation despite being billed as such. I'm honestly not sure why I should +1 something for Google, or "Like" something for Facebook, or "check in" to foursquare. And I feel like it's hurting real innovation. As an example: I've been waiting for Google Maps to be able to save the route I chose on the desktop Maps and sync it with Android for two years-ish, but with every update all I see is "new Latitude features!" And this is far from just a Google thing, I'm sure someone could find examples of Apple/MS/Facebook/HP/Whoever doing the same things.

      So, I dunno. Is this just clueless middle/upper managment seeing dollar signs in buzzwords? Will this social/location bubble pop like the tech bubble did? Or am I just not seeing the innovation happening behind, or in spite of, the hype?
      • It's management thinking that customers are big fat whales in need of opportunities to depense large and small sums of cash.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sootman ( 158191 )

        > I've been waiting for Google Maps to be able
        > to save the route I chose on the desktop
        > Maps and sync it with Android for two
        > years-ish, but with every update all I
        > see is "new Latitude features!"

        +1 for this. Or how about making routes that are more complex than just Point A to Point B? I'm not saying I need it to solve the traveling salesman problem, but it'd be nice to be able to plot out a few errands all at once, rather than figuring out my next route each time I get back into the car

      • It's interesting to me how much location-aware and social are being pushed out as features for users. Interesting in that it seems to me like very little value is being created for the user.

        It seems to me like there's loads of opportunities there. Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't anyone stuff information into Google that will be spit out by the mobile maps app? It certainly appears on the desktop.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by brillow ( 917507 )

        You can actually do this already. You can either use the "chrome to phone" extension or just click "save to my maps" in your browser and then open up the saved map on your phone. It's actually a very useful feature when travelling, as you can pin several POI's on your computer before you leave, and then find them when you're walking around.

        Complain fail.

        • I guess I should have been more specific, but nice of you to be rude in response. What I was trying to get is to save a modified route, one that I added waypoints to and adjusted, because the auto generated route took me through high traffic areas. I know how to save to my maps, but the saved map doesnt jive with the GPS navigation when driving. Last I checked was a few months ago however but the syncing/waypoints have been around much, much longer.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jrumney ( 197329 )

        I've been waiting for Google Maps to be able to save the route I chose on the desktop Maps and sync it with Android for two years-ish

        You can save the route with the Link button on top right of the map. Then paste that into the url bar and load it before using Chrome to Phone [google.com] (or Firefox equivalent [mozilla.org]) to sync with the phone. Yes, a single button would be nice, but it is still easier than starting from scratch again on your phone.

        • Thanks, - I should have been more specific though, I meant a specific route with waypoints that adjust the route. And then syncing that with the GPS navigation map. This never seemed to work for me. But I havent tried it in a few months.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jrumney ( 197329 )
      For Windows Mobile, using Google Gears, and now Adobe Flash has finally caught up. This news is so old the technologies it was implemented on are dead already.

  • Security? (Score:3)

    by Shillo ( 64681 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2011 @04:18AM (#36433558)

    I can easily imagine an example of someone with a Samsung tablet visiting a museum and being able to download a 'guide' application, despite the fact that the museum doesn't actually offer one.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I can easily imagine an example of someone with a Samsung tablet visiting a museum and being able to download a 'guide' application, despite the fact that the museum doesn't actually offer one.

      well, the company I formerly worked for (Econoetica) did offer that, as Arianna mobile:
      http://www.ariannamobile.com/en.html [ariannamobile.com]

      City of Firenze (Florence for you fellow US people), Pisa, Bologna and Matera, museum of Canossa and other cultural institutions purchased it

      All those customers had the application delivered to their visitors using bluetooth kiosks from our technical partner Waymedia: http://www.waymedia.it/ [waymedia.it]

      Arianna is flash-based (well, flash lite) and was selected by Italian Government as innovative it

      • Econoetica

        To someone who cannot say his/her Rs, that's pretty much econerotica. And, while I'm not sure what that is yet, I'm sure it's exploititillative.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by vlm ( 69642 )

        I can easily imagine an example of someone with a Samsung tablet visiting a museum and being able to download a 'guide' application, despite the fact that the museum doesn't actually offer one.

        well, the company I formerly worked for (Econoetica) did offer that, as Arianna mobile:
        http://www.ariannamobile.com/en.html [ariannamobile.com]

        City of Firenze (Florence for you fellow US people), Pisa, Bologna and Matera, museum of Canossa and other cultural institutions purchased it

        What the original poster means, is anywhere the masses would expect to be able to download a 'guide' application, they'll actually be getting owned by a guy with a laptop in a duffel bag, and as the word of stolen identities and ruined financial lives gets out, eventually only the dumbest of the masses will continue to try and download 'guide' applications and the only providers of 'guide' applications will be the previously mentioned creepy guys with laptops in their duffel bags. The well will be poisoned

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zebedeu ( 739988 )

      Exactly.
      How fitting that the Adobe guy didn't consider security in his idea.

  • Who do you trust? Location aware listener apps on your device? Network position monitorins? An NFC tag taped to a wall?

  • Ad near you (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2011 @04:21AM (#36433578) Journal
    From flash ads on browsers, Adobe offers a vision of you walking and an ad ringing you every 50 ft.
    Thank you Adobe for this great IT innovation. Now we have to wait for a another smart Russian to offer tools to remove your pre installed "Kevin"ware from our telco locked phones.
    • Part of the carrier package is custom firmware; Take it or leave it. Nobody is forcing you to take out a lengthy contract in order to get the latest shiny shiny.

      Buy it in a lump sum with no contract, or accept the bloat (until some smart Russian offers tools to root and flash your own ROM, which I highly recommend. Cut cold boot time for my Desire HD from 4m to 45 seconds).

  • Umm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gmhowell ( 26755 ) <gmhowell@gmail.com> on Tuesday June 14, 2011 @04:52AM (#36433660) Homepage Journal

    How about they just focus for a little while on flashplayer-that-doesn't-suck.

  • In a similar way, do they get uninstalled when you leave the relevant location? Didn't RTFA obviously, but I bet not. What a spam-alicious idea.

  • Next-gen? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mascot ( 120795 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2011 @05:41AM (#36433834)

    "Will be possible soon", TFA says. How is any of this not possible now? Local wi-fi can happily direct you to an internal web page for app download. Wifi/BT signal strength can determine position within the given building/area.

    The entire article reads like something a visionary might have said a few decades ago. Saying it today, just shows you don't actually have anything interesting to talk about.

    • If you've already connected to an internal wifi, why bother with the app all? just load it as a webpage or a movie clip or something. There shouldn't be any need to install an app just to deliver content to a devices whose raison d'Ãtre is displaying content.

      That way you just need to write the content once and it's compatible with every device which might wander through the door. Including that 1 person with a Windows 9 Nokia in a few years time. (assumes Nokia lasts that long).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Mascot ( 120795 )

        There's principle, and then there's reality. In principle, I agree with you. But in reality, I can see how apps might either not be possible to implement in html5, or it might not be time efficient to go that route compared to creating a native app. Remember, we're not necessarily talking about just the equivalent of displaying a web page here. It could be a tad more fancy, like optical recognition of which painting you are looking at, with interactive bits overlaid in augmented reality fashion (painting wa

  • Will it understand proxies? (Score:3)

    by locofungus ( 179280 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2011 @05:44AM (#36433844)

    The BBC news website really went downhill when it was no longer possible to tell it where you were.

    When I'm at work it's now convinced I live in the US. Even on the UK specific page it now tells me when the page was last updated in ET time.

    I also get a "US view" of the world on the front page which is less than ideal.

    Tim.

    • Perhaps the problem isn't with the BBC, but the fact that your internet traffic is proxy'd via the US? You'd also get much better latency if you could get directly onto the internet locally.

  • Awesome, sounds like a great idea. So does country recognition for browsers... until you are in a country whose language still gives you headaches. You might be surprised at how very unhelpful it is to someone struggling with the language to have everything popping up in Czech. Perhaps a flag to turn this off? Like google's secretive /ncr, only one that works a little more globally? I have no problem ignoring the ads in any language, but when shotwell tries to log me into facebook, I don't want the usernam

  • The problems of course will be:

      - the limited utility of advertising
      - they won't make nice keepsakes or fit into a scrapbook
      - hard to collect signatures on the app
      - the theater being illuminated by _everyone_ having their cell phone out looking at the program

    William

  • URL? (Score:2)

    by Max_W ( 812974 )

    Why cannot a museum has a good HTML page with an URL instead? What is wrong with an URL?

  • Wouldn't this be the ultimate vector for malware?

  • The other day I trought that could be interesting to have a open wifi with SSID "Play GalaxyMerchant", with this router not connected to the internet, and redirecting all the trafic to himself, then having on itself a copy of the open source web game Galaxy Merchant. This way, everyone near the router can play on it as a sorta... dedicated server. The problem is that to do so, would need to stay offline :-P ..so is not a great idea.

  • I remeber travelling to Spain last year and visiting a historic site which had posters at the entrance to download an app through wifi which was a virtual tourguide, qavailable in various languages etc...
  • Not. And he is CTO of Adobe? I wonder for how much longer....

  • ... if I'm likely to be eaten by a grue where I currently am.

  • That's just dangerous (Score:3)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2011 @08:29AM (#36434886) Homepage

    The location-based push of data would be bad enough, but executable code is very bad. Human psychology says that people will not want to "miss out" on whatever is available and will turn off validation and other inhibitors to access these things.

    Before long, rogue "location pushers" will be out there pushing things to devices and people will simply accept them to their doom.

    It won't matter how many discussions slashdot and similar groups will have on the subject. It is demonstrably true that people will ignore and bypass any warnings presenting to get at anything they want regardless of how stupid it is. People do stupid things all the time for lots of reasons. This idea from Adobe is a dangerous one that can and will exploit more human stupidity.

    And let's not forget that to make this happen, some sort of client or modification to the OS of various devices will have to be installed to make it possible. I guess Adobe and all simply haven't learned their lessons after all these years.

  • After going through the hell that is deploying adobe software (Acrobat Pro), no fecking way. They appear to be operating under the delusion that we all have unlimited disk space, RAM, and bandwidth. 1.5gb? Seriously???? And their patching "strategy" (msp fiels ina very specific order. Have to start back at the .0 rev and patch your way forward) is one of the biggest clusterfucks I've come across in recent memory. There are far better alternatives out there, more efficient, less expensive.
  • The only location-aware app I want is one that tells me how to stay far away from Adobe and its crapps at all times.

  • I remember specifically in 2000 at an IBM Developerworks conference, they were all hot for Teh Bluetooths, talking about how when you walk by a BT enabled vending machine it'd send a coupon to your phone.

    I'm sure someone has been talking about this scenario for many more years than that. It's an advertisers wet dream.

    Didn't want it then, don't want it now.. and unfortunately it's much more realistic now.

    More spam to buzz my phone == fail, especially when it buzzes just because I'm walking by the shopping di

  • Better than an app, if it were just a 'site' that was part of some larger networker, like, a web of sites. And when you did a proximity search you could see which sites were close to you. That'd be awesome.

    Too bad hitchhikers guide to the galaxy had this a thousand years ago, prior art, suckers!

  • Why not just put a QR code near the entrance of the museum, or a web address?

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