In my previous post, I mentioned the Minority Report-imagined future of advertising where retinal scanners could identify an individual and then customized advertisements would be holographically projected to you.
I guess the RedPepper ad agency saw that movie too, because they have just come out with a product called FaceDeals which is like an automated mashup of Facebook and FourSquare. The product uses a camera with face recognition software, then (assuming you've opted in through the app), automatically checks you in on Facebook and presents you with a customized offer for the establishment you're entering based on your Like history.
The future is here.
(Or at least, it's in Nashville)
http://designtaxi.com/news/353290/When-This-Camera-Sees-Your-Face-It-Checks-You-In-On-Facebook/
3 comments:
Does anyone use Foursquare anymore? Two years ago, the website was super hot- it was being courted by Yahoo, it had the Ashton-Demi endorsement, and so on but I could never get past the "creep" factor of broadcasting my whereabouts so I could get stalked.
These daily deal/social networking sites really have had a nice time in the sun, but how many of these do people really need? Groupon shares today dropped the most since the company's IPO in November after reporting a second-quarter revenue miss yesterday. What's more, sites like FaceDeals make me even more squeamish about sharing information. I'd rather not save the money.
Foursquare is as popular as ever. It rose past the initial hype where everyone was checking in, trying to be mayor, and auto-posting on Facebook and Twitter. After all that peaked and got everyone who wasn't into foursquare annoyed, they refocused on sharing more to other foursquare users and now moving to "deals" so users actually get value out of check ins.
Users who used to hate the fad of just checking in to get badges and be the mayor are starting to use foursquare regularly, but not broadcasting it as loudly as the initial adopters. They are more focused on engagement with current users than expanding nationally, only making it seem like no one uses it anymore.
The most recent data suggests that the average number of checkins per user has dropped off quite a bit. And this shouldn't be surprising - Foursquare's latest update basically deprioritizes checking in. While a cute idea, there was a fundamental flaw in it - the user had to remember to use Foursquare. In other words, it was all pull and no push.
Now, using location-aware technology, Foursquare can push out information to users.
Whether or not Facebook gets into this game will be interesting. Facebook recently acquired Face.com to boost its facial recognition capabilities, which would be interesting to use in concert with a local commerce initiative. Facebook launched a deals offering last summer, but pulled it back when they realized the economics were terrible. In terms of checking in, they actually acquired Gowalla last year, which was Foursquare's largest competitor.
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