I always try to flaunt my geeky side whenever I can, yet, I hate any item of clothing branded GEEK or NERD worn by seemingly hipster and obviously “cool” girls. But that’s another topic.
Being an avid player of Nintendo consoles and following the evolution of the DS from the very original to the 3DS I became inspired by a feature that the 3DS had, known as “Street Pass”.
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[source - Nunneley, S. (2013). Nintendo Zone StreetPass enhancement hitting North America in a few weeks. Available: http://www.vg247.com/2013/07/18/nintendo-zone-streetpass-enhancement-hitting-north-america-in-a-few-weeks/. Last accessed 26th Nov 2013. ]
StreetPass is a feature present in every Nintendo 3DS system that allows users to exchange data from games & applications that the two own. It is on regardless of whether the 3DS is in sleep mode or not (though the system itself must be on), and automatically acts when another 3DS user walks within the console’s range. With it, players can acquire new features in games that they own (even if the game’s card is not presently in the 3DS card slot) and obtain the Miis of 3DS users that walk past them. If one wishes, they can turn the feature off completely or assign the games that they want it to work with. Several games have made use of this function in unique ways.- Source N/A. (N/A). StreetPass. Available: http://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/StreetPass. Last accessed 26th Nov 2013.]
The function is basically a new way for fellow DS owners to interact, communicate and earn points in games with minimal effort. This encourages the expansion of the DS community. However gaming is very little linked with my initial idea.
My initial idea was to use the StreetPass functionality but as an app. This app would be developed so that information could be transferred with the simple passing of someone else with the same app. I first suggested and flirted with the idea of a business card exchange which would allow users to create a database of local professionals and talent to help expand their business or to help an individual find their niche in a hiring company. Also, to avoid spam e mailers and or pranksters, an account would have to be created and then interests that are genuine would be forwarded to a user at which point the user can choose whether or not he/she would like to disclose personal information, such as number and/or email address.
However technology similar to this already exists via an App named Bump. Bump allows the near immediate transfer of media and contact cards. However requires the physical motion of bumping and connecting that way.
If the street pass / business card swap idea had been set in motion the app would cut out the middle man and not require any physical communication as you'd be unknowingly collecting information whereas with Bump you'd need to know the person before taking their contact details.
"How does Bump work?There are two parts to Bump: the app running on your device and a smart matching algorithm running on our servers in the cloud. The app on your phone uses the phone's sensors to literally "feel" the bump, and it sends that info up to the cloud. The matching algorithm listens to the bumps from phones around the world and pairs up phones that felt the same bump. Then we just route information between the two phones in each pair."[Source] For my next idea I considered this type of technology and it's compatibility with it.
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The (business card) idea quickly crashed and burned after some speculation and speaking to a friend (God, I hate talking to him but he’s just so helpful) who was working in industry and had a fair amount of business know-how. He refuted the idea saying that people would be able to do the same thing on LinkedIn, the only USP would be the passing and that would not be enough to encourage people to download said app.
He then helped me construct a different idea using a similar functionality but for retailers.
The second idea I guess could be called a Store Pass. The way this would work is that an individual with the Store Pass app would literally pass by a high street retailer (this isn’t just limited to clothing retailers but for the purpose of this scenario and project, let’s just focus on that) and then the user would be alerted or ‘pinged’ with a limited time offer.
E.g Purchase any item(s) over £20 within the hour and receive 20% off!
The fact that the buyer is limited to an hour of purchase makes these offers exclusive and adds an element of fun.
Pings like these would increase footfall within a store and encourage impulse buys. If someone was browsing and idly walked past a store that they regularly shop at, they’d be more inclined to browse, knowing they had an offer to use, exclusive to themselves.
After pitching this idea to the peers on my course they were worried that they’d be pinged all the time everywhere they went and would become annoyed with the app and switch it off. My counter-argument for this is that since the offers are exclusive and mainly timed they’d only receive a maximum of 1 ping per store, per day.
This also ensured that stores that weren’t doing as well in certain departments or even cities could send more pings, or more encouraging pings. For example, Topshop in Oxford Circus could be doing extremely well in selling jewellery and accessories but Topshop in Birmingham could be lacking. So in an attempt to balance the sales out, Topshop Birmingham could ping about an instant accessories flash sale to some users which would help improve sales in that department.
So concludes this post in intial ideas as I attempt to conduct more research to backup my thesis!
