ClearHart Digital — the company behind the KillSwitch app that banishes ex-loves from your Facebook feed — is bringing its ethos to the outdoor music festival.
The company, along with partner Esurance, launched its NFC-enabled Insider Band on Aug. 11 at San Francisco's Outside Lands music festival. With KillSwitch, "we were making breakups suck less," says Clara de Soto, the company's creative director. "Now we're making staying connected at a giant festival suck less."
Esurance and ClearHart set up eight 14-foot towers throughout Golden Gate Park, each a "secure beacon of connectivity," with NFC-enabled Nexus 7 tablets mounted on each of the towers' four sides. Prior to the festival, participants registered for a free wristband online, and then connected them to their Facebook accounts.
After activation, tapping the band on the tower allowed you to check in to that location, take a photo or send a message to a Facebook friend who had also registered for an Insider Band. That data could be immediately posted to Facebook or saved in a memory bank, accessible the following week.
"So, when other people lose their friends or are missing the best moments because of poor reception and dead batteries," Esurance explains in a blog post, "You can kick back and enjoy the show."
It's an effort to harness technology that is already being used, and tailor it towards improving the logistically daunting experience of a crowded festival. Staying connected without burying your head in your phone, and missing the musicians you paid good money to see can be a difficult task, one the Insider Band aims to alleviate. De Soto says the point is to ensure that "your offline life [is] dictating your online life, not the other way around."
Like any new project, the launch had its kinks: The Wi-Fi was spotty in the Esurance tent on Saturday afternoon, so it took me 15 minutes or so to wait in line and get set up with a functional Insider Band. While I had some time between the acts I came to see, this could have conceivably been an obstacle for others racing from one band to another due to the packed festival schedule.
The process of checking into the towers scattered around the park was a simple and fun way to share my experience. The pre-populated message the Insider Band posted to my Facebook account declared I was "crushin it" at Outside Lands, and using the towers as a drive-by photo booth was a convenient alternative to smartphone portraits. And I wasn't alone: 8,060 registered users tapped 29,753 times and uploaded 4,780 photos during the festival, according to ClearHart.
With my small festival posse, however, I only received one direct message. What's more, when I tried to connect with someone in my group in the middle of the crowd while a musician was performing, I did have to pull out my phone to get real-time updates from those nearby, and avoid trekking to a tower mid-set.
It's plausible that with a few more places to check messages, however, more widespread use of the Insider Band and perhaps the option to send an actual Facebook message, users might be able to use the accessory in a more logistical — as opposed to purely recreational — sense
That said, the idea has potential. It's an innovative use of a familiar technology that's a lot of fun in practice, but still has room to grow. Even at this early stage, the NFC-enabled band made staying connected at a music festival a little less painful.
Images: Tomas Wischerath/ClearHart Digital
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario