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Intel iAd, “The Escape” Featured in MediaPost
Ansible was selected to conceive and design Intel’s first innovative mobile ad on Apple’s iAD platform. The end-product is an interactive action-adventure game called The Escape. Today, the iAD was touted as Intel’s “most ambitious and imaginative mobile advertising campaign yet” by MediaPost. The article interviews the mastermind behind the iAD, David Veneski, Intel’s Senior Digital/Social Strategist
By leveraging the advanced mobile technologies and envelope-pushing creative, Ansible helps some of the largest and most demanding companies deliver rich interactive experiences to customers on the go . Follow us and stay up to speed with more exciting projects in the future.
Play Intel’s iAD and See if You Got What It Takes!
Ansible was selected to conceive and design an iAD on Apple’s mobile ad platform to promote the 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ Processors. The result is an exciting action-adventure game where YOU are the hero agent. Using your speed, wits, and skill, you must retrieve the 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i5 processor from enemy spies. But wait, who said fun games can’t be educational? Play your challenges right and you can learn all about what makes the 2nd Generation of Intel® Core™ Processors even more powerful than the first.
Find the html5 banners in your favorite iPhone app. They are running everywhere. And if you can’t find it, we have good news for you. “The Escape” iAD is featured in the Apple iAD Gallery app, which you can download for free. Simply search for “iAD Gallery” in the app store or point your computer browser to http://ans.ee/iad and click on View In iTunes.
Ansible’s View Point: Google Acquires Motorola Mobility, Inc.
Why did Google Acquire Motorola Mobility?
Google and Motorola just announced that Google will be acquiring Motorola Mobility, Inc. for $12.5 billion. Google’s primary objective in this deal is to bring Motorola’s 17,000 mobile
patents in-house to defend it against the Apple/Microsoft-led consortium which is currently demanding $15 in patent licensing fees for each Android handset sold. This deal will also offer Google leverage against patent suits brought on by its competitors. This partnership will also give Motorola its first entrance into the OS front, where innovations in the mobile space have been occurring. (more…)
Windows Phone 7-first close look
It’s been a while after Microsoft officially launched the company’s latest Windows Mobile Phone– Windows Phone 7. This is Microsoft most talked about new phone since the previous Windows Mobile 6.5 mostly because MSFT vastly revamped the UI of the new phone, which we can see much inspiration from its own portable music player “Zune“.
Ansible just got a hand on the new Windows Phone babe with the newly released “HTC Surround Phone”, which is one the three featured WP7 on AT&T network, with commercials on TV almost every half hour.
Ansible will talk about the Phone device in this blog post and introduce the phone with an unboxing sceene.
Here is the preview of the new HTC Surround just arrived in Office yesterday.
Before unboxing, let’s talk about the phone a little bit. It’s one of the most prolific phone maker, HTC’s WP7 product. The model’s name suggests that this creature features the entertainment function, especially in its audio performance with Mobile Dolby and SRS (Surround Sound System) certified and built in to the phone. This phone also features a slide out stereo which takes the whole length of the phone.
This is HTC’s customized phone for AT&T, therefore, the boxing is a standard AT&T box with the signature AT&T orange theme color and logo on the box.
HTC Surround Box
Upon opening the box, the Phone reveals…a 3.8″ WP7 babe.
The phone comes with standard accessories in box like wall plug, micro USB cable and a headphone.
HTC’s well known for its industrial design on their mobile phone products. The marvelous design can be seen on this phone as well.
HTC uses much of metal elements on the phone, 3.8″ glossy display monitor takes up most of the phone real estate on the front.
At the bottom are the three WP7 buttons, from left to right are: back to previous page, Start, and Search. Since this is a Windows Phone, not surprisingly, the default
search engine is MSFT’s featured Bing.
The back of the phone shows the information that pretty much tells what the phone is and what’s in the Phone: inscribed HTC metal logo, printed Windows Phone 7 Logo, Mobile Dolby effect and SRS effect support. Along side are the 5M pixel camera and LED flash.
As we talked about before, the phone features a slide-out full-phone length stereo, on the stereo there is a little button on the top left corner, which user can click on to toggle turning on and off SRS effect.
On the back, HTC also designed a kickstand, and the phone will stand on the desk, becoming a personal entertainment center. Great for personal entertainment like watching videos and listening to music at home.
The surround sound effect is pretty good, you can actually tell a different of the depth and richness of the sound when you toggle on and off the SRS. The slide out stereo does a good job in delivering great sounds for music and audio for movies. However, the sound effect is only noticeable when you are at home in a quiet environment. Although the stereo works quite well, but don’t expect it to work like a mega watt stereo out on the street…you simply can’t play that loud out in a noisy environment, plus you don’t want to drain your battery so much if you plan to use the phone as a phone (to get calls and messages).
Now, when it comes to the WP7 interface, there has been thumbs up and down for it, like most other phone OS out there. However, after an initial test here at Ansible, we found the user interface works pretty fluently, the display transition effect really gives us a “wow” effect, icons, menus fly in and out when you switches between menus.
The phone seamlessly integrates facebook, twitter and Email (especially outlook) to the phone, making it a “social-oriented” phone, also the main feature of WP7.
HTC Surround has 1GH CPU, and it seems that it’s optimized for the phone that all the visual, 3D effect flows smoothly with no glitches and hardly wait time between menu switches.
However, as Smartphone goes into the App era, so far Microsoft Marketplace App store isn’t impressing us so much. There just isn’t many app out there, especially the most popular app across other Smartphone system like Pandora, Google Apps, etc. Some of them are not even planning to roll out a WP7 version App, which frustrates many users that are planning to get a WP7. But WP7 game apps are backed by its own branded XBox name, with several good games already in the Marketplace, user can try out the games before buying them.
Since first WP7 hit the market in October this year, Microsoft has not yet release the number of WP7 sales. Will WP7 greatly impact the current Smartphone market share? Guess we will not have a better picture until major research firms releases a comprehensive data in Q1 next year.
Will you try out or even get a Windows Phone 7? Let us know in the comments below.
Marketing with good karmas
Marketing with good karmas
Imagine you can shop while contributing to your favorite cause on-the-go. Shopkick has successfully brought these two ideas together with their newly launched iPhone App, CauseWorld. The mobile service is a bit like (RED)™ meets Foursquare. People check into shops and collect “karmas” which can be donated to the cause of their choice, all from their iPhone. Since its inception in December last year, thousands of iPhone users have downloaded the App and started “checking-in” for “karmas” to contribute to good causes.
CauseWorld let users shop and donate on-the-go
How does CauseWorld work?
Once the user launch the App on their iPhones, a list of stores near you will show up on the screen. This is based on iPhone’s AGPS system to determine the stores around you. Then you can simply walk into any of the stores on the list. While inside, click “check-in” and you will receive “karmas” which can be donated and transferred to real money donation to the organizations of your choice.
CauseWorld takes full advantage of the iPhone’s multimedia and location-based capabilities, delivering quite an engaging level of experience from login to the app navigation, shopping and contributing to charities.
CauseWorld will determine the stores near you
Types of charitable programs on CauseWorld App
Great opportunity for marketers
The best part though, is its apparent impact in driving traffic into stores and motivating purchase. According to TechCrunch, 25 to 90 percent of user check-in rate converted to in-store purchase. In other words, while customers may be checking into stores to do their good deed of the day, they are also treating themselves with a bit of retail therapy.
Currently, the entire program is being funded by Citibank and Kraft Foods, and the karmas donated are monetized into real dollars through donations from the two participating sponsors.
We have to applaud these two brands, not only on their savvy but also for demonstrated leadership in new ways to embrace corporate responsibility. As the two lead sponsors of the program, these brands have branched into a brave new world of charitable contributions and mobile marketing simultaneously.
You can choose to donate to the charitable organizations of your choosing
CauseWorld App draws higher engagement from users
4Info's Latest List of Campaigns
Text COORSLIGHT to 44636 (NFL Draft Alerts ) Text TACO to 44636 (Taco Bell offer) Text LOVINIT to 44636 (McDonalds Double offer) Text AVIS to 44636 (Avis offer for fans) Text FREEDOM to 44636 (Sweeps for Kissimmee CVB) Text JIFFY to 44636 (Coupon for Jiffy Lube) Text RAVIOLI to 44636 (Buitoni offer) Text HH to 44636 (Mobile booking Hampton Hotels) Text SPRITE to 44636 (Slam Dunk Contest for Sprite) Text OBAMA to 44636 (Inauguration Day Alerts) Text FUTBOL to 44636 (World Cup Soccer Alerts for Transitions Lens) Text PAPA (Special offer for Papa Johns) Text ACELA to 44636 (Downloadable game for Amtrak) Text DQBLIZZ to 44636 (Valentines Day Deal for Dairy Queen) Text HW to 44636 (Holiday World Soft Drink offer) Text VICKS to 44636 (Daily weather alerts from Vicks) Text SHAVE to 44636 (Retail alert for Philips) Text CY to 44636 (Click to WAP booking Marriott) Text BELIEVE to 44636 (Click to locate for United Methodist) Text Butterball to 44636 (Click to call for Butterball) Text JCP to 44636 (Click to retail for JC Penney) Text DIY to 44636 (Tune in Alert for DIY Cool Tools) Text SARAH to 44636 (click2video for Sarah Marshall) Text FRIENDLY to 44636 (click2 retail locator for Friendlys) Text VERSUS to 44636 (Tune in alert for Sports Soup)
Free Ansible Mobile Notebook To Celebrate 1K Tweets!
Please direct message me @ansiblemobile on twitter with your name and business address.
The first 3 people to do so will get an Ansible Mobile notebook sent to them 
Microsoft Bing In-App Ads and Landing Experience
updated 4Info Campaign List
Text COORSLIGHT to 44636 (NFL Draft Alerts )
Text TACO to 44636 (Taco Bell offer)
Text LOVINIT to 44636 (McDonalds Double offer)
Text AVIS to 44636 (Avis offer for fans)
Text FREEDOM to 44636 (Sweeps for Kissimmee CVB)
Text JIFFY to 44636 (Coupon for Jiffy Lube)
Text RAVIOLI to 44636 (Buitoni offer)
Text HH to 44636 (Mobile booking Hampton Hotels)
Text SPRITE to 44636 (Slam Dunk Contest for Sprite)
Text OBAMA to 44636 (Inauguration Day Alerts)
Text FUTBOL to 44636 (World Cup Soccer Alerts for Transitions Lens)
Text PAPA (Special offer for Papa Johns)
Text ACELA to 44636 (Downloadable game for Amtrak)
Text DQBLIZZ to 44636 (Valentines Day Deal for Dairy Queen)
Text HW to 44636 (Holiday World Soft Drink offer)
Text VICKS to 44636 (Daily weather alerts from Vicks)
Text SHAVE to 44636 (Retail alert for Philips)
Text CY to 44636 (Click to WAP booking Marriott)
Text BELIEVE to 44636 (Click to locate for United Methodist)
Text Butterball to 44636 (Click to call for Butterball)
Text JCP to 44636 (Click to retail for JC Penney)
Text DIY to 44636 (Tune in Alert for DIY Cool Tools)
Text SARAH to 44636 (click2video for Sarah Marshall)
Text FRIENDLY to 44636 (click2 retail locator for Friendlys)
Text VERSUS to 44636 (Tune in alert for Sports Soup)
AAA becomes relevant again to me via iPhone app
As soon as I got a driver’s liscence, my mom signed me up with AAA. Always one to be prepared, she knew membership would be worthwhile if I ever needed to be towed or ran out of gas (both of which happened at least twice over the past 16 years of driving).
In the pre-internet days, AAA was also a place you could go to get maps, and cashier cheques if you were travelling internationally.
Then I started noticing that hotels would give you discounts if you were a AAA member. Not bad, but I just assumed that was all; and recently in one of my wallet re-shuffles I pulled my AAA card out as something that I didn’t need on me all the time (I just left it in my car)…
Recently I stumbled on a AAA iPhone app. Using mapping functionality, it shows me the over 10,000 places in the US and Canada that provide AAA discounts (apparently back in the day there was a book?)
Full description of the discount, the address and the phone number of the place, I’m diggin’ it..
And the fun does not end there, if you input your AAA membership #, the phone’s location system will expedite AAA emergency services (the towing, gas, etc.). WOW.
Ok, so my AAA card may have to come out of the car so I can take advanatge of some of these deals..
Very big thumbs up to AAA and the brains behind making AAA membership relevant to me again…