Happy Birthday to Microsoft Tag who is One Years Old Today!
Last year Microsoft Tag was announced at CES. It's been quite the year for us.Magazines, Movies, Musicians and more have had great experiences using Tag!
Let's take a look at some cool uses of Tag over the last year:
January 2009
During the Winter X Games 13 this past weekend, action sports fans visited the Totino’s booth to get free Totino’s® Pizza Rolls® snacks and flyers with a Tag that leads to Danny Kass’s competition schedule.
February 2009
A Turkish Magazine called LOG is now using Microsoft Tag
This tag will give you access to the LOG mobile website to check out the last news. Great scenario when you are in a bus, metro, holidays …. to stay up to date!
March 2009
Our team received the following tweet on Friday via @HomeServerHacks:
This tweet links to a cool post from Philip Churchill where you’ll find a nice picture of SteveB with Donavon West from Home Server Hacks who uses Microsoft Tag on his Tee-Shirt
The best part is that you can scan the Microsoft Tag directly on the tee-shirt through your screen:
Pciture
Picture from mtoo
Check it out here. Thanks @HomeServerHacks for sharing the news :)
April 2009
The Sacramento Book Review is the first book review publication to use the Microsoft Tag technology, giving its readers the ease of purchasing books they find of interest as they are reading the reviews using their mobile phones. Throughout the 32 page, 200 book review tabloid that is distributed around the greater Sacramento and San Francisco Bay Area in bookstores, libraries, coffee shops, colleges, and other gathering places, Microsoft Tags appear accompanying each review.
“After publishing our 1,000th printed book review, we’re excited to be on the cutting-edge of technology—bringing together ease of finding something over the Internet with traditional newspaper printing. We’ve discovered that people still prefer to pick up a newspaper, magazine, or book to read. We all spend so many hours staring at our computer screens, sometimes we just want to pick up a newspaper and relax. With Microsoft Tag, SBR allows the two mediums to converge,” says Heidi Komlofske, owner of 1776 Productions and Co-Publisher of SBR.
Readers of the Sacramento Book Review within the first page of the tabloid are introduced to the Microsoft Tags that accompany each book review throughout the tabloid. They can instantly download the free, small application to their data-enabled cellphone where they can then begin to scan Tags launching their mobile browsers to a well known online book purchasing site.
Aesthetics for a multi-column tabloid is a critical factor to how readers warm to and receive the publication, Microsoft Tags given their very small size are perfectly suited to be subtly integrated into each page without distracting the reader and keeping the look and feel like that of traditional non-interactive print media.
Microsoft Tags can be printed on color or black and white media, offering the publisher maximum flexibility in terms of keeping costs low, keeping the aesthetics in line with the relevant color set, yet still provide the cellphone user a highly reliable code scanning experience
5:13 a thriller movie slated to release in 2010 just implemented Microsoft Tag in their movie poster. Highlighted in yellow bellow, the Microsoft Tag can be snapped allowing the public at large to gain access to mobile content, including mobile trailers and downloads.
Using Microsoft Tag on printed materials creates the opportunity for indie and corporate movie companies to increase the ROI on their print marketing efforts. With Microsoft Tag print advertising can now serve as a real life portal to the online world. Keep an eye out for Microsoft Tag on other print material in your area and for the release of 5:13.
July 2009
Microsoft Tag is a mobile application that enables users to link almost anything in the real world to more information or to an interactive experience on the mobile device. Microsoft Tag client software installed on the mobile device allows the owner to use the device’s camera to scan or take a picture of ("snap") a Tag barcode, then accesses the information associated with the Tag on the mobile device. Businesses can use Microsoft Tag to interact with their customers like never before, using physical media such as print catalogs or POS displays as the launching point. Tag owners create and manage Tags at the Microsoft Tag Web site, http://tag.microsoft.com/ManageAds.aspx.
The Microsoft Tag API allows anyone to create Tag from the web, the desktop, mobile devices.
By using the Microsoft Tag Web Services API, you can programmatically access many of the same operations used on the Microsoft Tag Web site. Using Visual Studio and the .NET Framework, you can write programs to create, modify, and otherwise manage Tags for your business — including bulk Tag creation and updates — without having to use the Microsoft Tag Web site interface.
September 2009
A dull moment while waiting for the bus? Snap the Tag and be in the know!
In collaboration GVB, Sparked BV, and MINIbar started a pilot at the Central Station in Amsterdam to provide infotainment via a mobile phone. On tram and bus stops at the Station Square travelers with their mobile phone can snap a GVB Tag enabled by "Microsoft Tag". By snapping the Tag they receive free access to specific arrival and departure information, latest news on public transportation, a mobile movie series and art of the day. Three randomly selected people who snapped the Tag will win a €100 euro (about $140) credit to their transportation subscription.
GVB decided to explore this innovative form of communication due to the increasing use of mobile technology with both younger and older consumers who are utilizing public transportation in the Netherlands. GVB is exploring the possibilities and limitations of tagging to inform travelers and will decide on further roll out after the initial project concludes. Sparked and MINIbar helped to develop the solution for GVB.
October 2009
November 2009
Today Dow Jones posted an article claiming that “this year may go down as the period that shopping by mobile phone during the holidays came into its own.” The piece goes on to discuss how “Black Friday” saw an unprecedented use of mobile phones by consumers to “zero in on and make purchases.” According to PayPal, mobile online payments through their service on Friday surged nearly 650% from last year.
Many marketers are betting that this shopping-via-mobile trend sees a boost today on what is now referred to as “Cyber Monday,” the busiest day of the year for retail electronic commerce.
So how do you make it as easy as possible for customers to connect with your brand on their mobile phones?
At Microsoft, we’re using Microsoft Tag in a pair of Bing ads running in today’s “Cyber Monday” edition of the New York Times. Readers simply snap the Tag image below with their mobile phone and they are immediately connected with Bing – no typing, looking up URLs, texting codes or browser launching.
We’ll let you know how it goes …
December 2009
I was scrolling through the Microsoft Advertising Blog and was excited to find out that they were using Microsoft Tag for their Avatar Campaign!e
Click here to see the post
"By teaming up with the folks at Microsoft Tag, our digital specialists were able to “unlock the world of Avatar” on all our mobile phones.
The technology in essence requires the download of a mobile app from http://getTag.mobi. By scanning the M-tag on the PC screen with their phone’s camera, fans of the movie are able to access Fox’s dedicated WAP site at the flick of a switch!
On the day of Avatar's movie release in France, UK, Spain and Germany, FOX also ran the Avatar ad campaign on MSN's mobile sites, providing strong exposure to moviegoers browsing on their mobile phone.
This is another great example of how Microsoft Advertising is helping brands provide immersive and rich encounters across multiple devices."
These are all great ways that others have used Tag in the past year!
What are your ideas? What cool ways have you seen Tag being used??
Let us know!