Presumably, with a little bit of programming, this concept could be scaled down to smaller levels. Imagine if there were a pre-compiled application that could integrated with a small display at, for example, a donut shop that showed the same information (tips and mayors).
If Foursquare doesn't want to provide the app, I'm sure that Gowalla or Yelp would be more than happy to provide apps for their services. Since even small locations are setting up electronic displays these days, it seems like a natural.
Well, it turns out that Locamoda (who provided the Las Vegas display) does not solely work on the huge and gaudy level, as gstellato noted.
LocaModa already provides this. Check out our App Store. Locamoda.com/apps
So I went to Locamoda's app store and found a number of applications.
Let's start with their FourSquare app.
Add Check-ins to your Wiffiti screen and encourage patrons to come to your venue and be crowned the Mayor. The FourSquare integration will add your venue to the map and allow other Foursquare users to discover your venue.
And they have a number of other applications that can put content on a screen. The Locamode project is the result of several years of work:
In London, England, 2001, Stephen Randall, was working at Symbian, the global mobile operating system company he helped found. Stephen struggled with one question in those days: Why was the mobile phone having such a major impact on life in Europe and Asia but not in the US, where mobile technology was 4-5 years behind the rest of the world? In Boston, MA, at exactly the same time, Steve An was pondering the same question.
“The Two Steves,” as they became known, met in 2002 through a Symbian-led joint venture. They were excited to discover that they had developed a similar and, at the time, pioneering vision – that the mobile phone will connect to the web and become a universal remote control to help broadcast life. And all screens (TV, Web, Phone, and what would later be dubbed Digital Out of Home) would be connected. They named this vision “The Web Outside”.
They built a prototype that connected websites, mobile phones and venue screens. They placed their first screen in the renowned Someday Café in Somerville. As soon as that screen went up, customers were eager to interact using it to promote local politics, chat and send messages.
The venues liked the fact that their customers were engaged, customers started to write about that experience, and advertisers asked if they could sponsor the experience. Today, LocaModa enables real-time user generated content from all over the world, and brands can sponsor and be part of those experiences as well.
For more information, check the Twitter account @TheWebOutside or LocaModa's Facebook page. Or check out this sample page about Afghanistan:
Last night I was about to create a vanity screen of my own, but I literally ran into a fail whale. As Devo said, some things never change.
