February 16, 2007
Cities as Billboards
Urban Spam in "Unsold" Space
The train of thought that I started as I discussed Fabien Girardin's Flickr heatmaps a few posts back, and which led me to thinking about mining consumer line-of sight data to target advertising, seems to be continuing here in a recent New York Times article about how advertisers are now looking to use what they would consider "unsold" space to place their messages. This phenomenon even has a name, urban spam.
But why just post the same ad for everyone to see? Why not use an individual viewer's line of sight as they travel as a "channel" into which to project ads and messages where blank space exists? Fabien's recent post, illustrated here, shows the "traces" left by Flickr photographers as they transit Barcelona. Where his heat maps showed the locations of single images, the traces follow the path the photographer takes through the city, or his visual corridor, if you will. [blogged on Smartspace]
Posted by jo at February 16, 2007 09:48 AM
