back to article Bluetooth's coming home

Footy fans at a number of clubs will soon be able to enjoy adverts downloaded direct to their mobile phones over a Bluetooth connection, courtesy of promotional company Bluepod. Fans at Blackburn Rovers, Birmingham City, West Ham, Portsmouth, Wigan Athletic, Wolves, and Celtic will be able to opt in to receive transmissions, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Aaarrgh

    Am I the only one concerned by this? We're going to end up with millions of phones all visible, and people accustomed to accepting any incoming bluetooth connection and running whatever arrives... think viruses, worms, trojans.

    How long before someone gets a stonking phone bill because a virus has got into their mobile and dials some premium rate number.

    How long before spammers start sending spam from other peoples phones over gprs.

    That's ignoring the SMS spam, and the fact that all your contacts are belong to us, etc, etc.

    I for one don't want my phone to be pwned!

  2. Stuart Gray

    At last, a sensible advertising model

    I like this idea - unobtrusive, obviously opt-in, targeted and ubiquitous - and, it seems, easy. Apart from having to switch to visible, I don't see many problems with this idea.

    Stuart

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Advertisers are idiots then

    For a movie trailer, (about 7 quid per seat) are they expecting one ticket sold *that would not otherwise have been* per ten or 20 downloads? That seems particularly optimistic to me. People will download free stuff for films they've already decided to see, and any that do go and see the film after having the trailer decide it for them have a decent chance of having gone to see it anyway.

    Kudos to Bluepod for making money, but do we really need to popularise another medium on which to be deluged with spam?

  4. Christopher D'Souza
    Unhappy

    great, that's all i need

    I don't go to Vicarage Road any more because of the way the wifi plays havoc with my Multiple Sclerosis. Recently, this has been a blessing in disguise, but the main culprit which affects me is bluetooth. Noticed this way before any Panorama programme poorly suggested there was any harm. Would like to get this "scientifically" proven instead of my schoolboy experiments involving a bluetooth USB adapter and my head, but till then it will be the ravings of a poor unlucky disabled man. Disability laws?

  5. Simon Riley

    Yet another reason to keep Bluetooth deactivated

    Just what don't I want at the football. My phone going off every 10 minutes. It's bad enough replying to all the "was that really offside?" and "Pedersen's a complete waste of space" without getting a dozen adverts for Nuts magazine or whatever.

    I realise I can only speak for myself here but I prefer to watch the damned game.

  6. The Mole

    Security

    Could be great fun to hack into this system. If the hacker wasn't nice you could potentially start a riot by insulting all the fans. All in all the possibilities are endless...

  7. Terence Eden
    Thumb Down

    Opt In?

    Ha! That's a joke!

    http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2007/12/bluetooth-spam-from-coca-cola.html

    All the regulators agree that having your phone on "discoverable" is not the same as opt-in, yet the companies still spam.

    It's all fun and games until you someone loses an eye!

  8. Mike Crawshaw
    Thumb Down

    Just what I want in cinemas...

    Like there aren't enough muppets playing with their mobile phones all the way through the film already....!

    I'm surprised Manchester Utd Promotions Ltd (didn't they once play football there rather than selling stuff and promoting hair gel?) didn't get in on this one...

  9. Graham Marsden
    Pirate

    Brings a whole new meaning to...

    ... "It's all gone quiet over there...!"

    As thousands of message tones go off on one terrace whilst the other is busily responding to the clever guy who's just managed to post a scatalogical comment about the visiting team's goalkeeper's lack of ability to all of them!

  10. jim
    Happy

    Excellent

    I live in a flat overlooking the pitch.

    I am going to make a stonking killing from this. It will help with my council rent.

    Bring it on. I'll be using as many phones as I can get hold of to get me loadsa dosh.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @jim

    Erm, they pay BLUEPOD the money... not you.

  12. Brian Bulcock
    Thumb Down

    Bad Bluetooth Security

    I thought of sending bluetooth messages to mobiles at least 3 years ago. I decided then that there was a very limited market for as some of the comments above say about security.

    Bluepob might start to recoup some of its investment, but as soon as someone comes along with a smartphone or such device, transmitting from 'Manchester United PLC' spreading malware, its revenue stream will surely dry up.

    People should be very aware of downloading anything from an unknown source.

  13. adrian j cotterill

    Bluetooth as an out of home medium will die

    For what it is worth AND it is only our prediction, Bluetooth / Bluejacking has no future as an out of home marketing tool...

    Last week we wrote - http://www.dailydooh.com/archives/746

    * Bluetooth as an out of home medium will die. We would argue that it hasn’t even got off the ground. ‘Bluejacking’ or whatever one wants to call it has had its day. Network providers who went to the expense of installing Bluetooth equipment would have been better off installing a Wi-Fi wireless access point and offering the consumer free (even walled garden) Internet access. We believe that Wi-Fi will replace Bluetooth in marketing campaigns

    We would also point readers at the article about URBAN SPAMMING and HSBCs decision to stop all bluetooth activity in its branches - see http://www.dailydooh.com/archives/679

  14. Timbo
    Gates Horns

    Good idea...

    By coincidence, I had a similar thought just the other day.....

    Supposing you were walking down the High Street, you could receive offers from any shop which showed their "deal of the day"....

    Or you were house hunting and while looking through an estate agents window you could grab the basic details of a house for sale...

    Or a travel agents latest promo for last availability holidays and/or flights.

    Surely, this would be a good idea....? The delivery system could be Bluetooth or wi-fi and obviously, would be an "opt-in" service....

    Anyone want to invest in such a scheme.....????

    (PS I've already lodged this idea, so if anyone nicks it, I'll see you in court :-) )

  15. Brian Bulcock
    Happy

    Bluepod

    Hi Timbo,

    The high street model would be more if you have an interactive display giving you a unique pairing code for an enquiry/promo.

    Sorry but I think that model is already out there.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re Timbo

    It's already done - it's hardly your idea.

    But in my experience it gets so little take up, it's a waste of time...

  17. Tim

    Adverts

    What made them try a cinema as testing ground for a mobile phone based adds? Did they change the message at the beginning of the film to "Please turn your phone to silent and check it regularly"

    Killing battery life and phone memory for what you can watch on youtube at 10x the quality, and with reasonable audio, doesn't make a whole load of sense.

    PS: as if there aren't enough adverts already.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Timbo

    Your ideas are as old as Bluetooth, in fact that was supposedly one of the proposed markets, way back then.

    Even in 2005 it was being done -

    http://bluetooth.com/Bluetooth/Press/News/Companies_send_information_about_merchandise_to_cell_phone_users.htm

    @ jim

    This is why you are living in a council flat.

  19. daniel
    Dead Vulture

    @Timbo

    Imagin walking down the highstreet, getting "special offer" messages from *every* store...

    After a saturday afternoon shopping, you then go and delete 400 messages from your mobile... or you spend 6 hours to do 20 minutes of shopping, spending 10 minutes in front of each shop, pairing, recieving and reading the offers on a 1 inch,16 colour screen....

    This is why I have only seen 2 (yes, two) interactive bluetooth ad displays in my entire life, and only 1 still works, the other having been removed.

    IT's bad enough with the V1@9@R@, R013x and "transform your one eyed worm onto the loch ness monster" spams via mail except you can "Ctrl+A-Shift+Del if you have not already installed <insert spam filter here>, now you have to do the same filtering on your own personal 1 inch, 16 colour, 9 button mobile phone with no external app enabled filtering support as you have a closed and unused anywhere else telephone operating system...... this is why bluetooth ads have never taken off since Bluetooth was launched 8 or 9 odd years ago.

  20. Danny
    Stop

    @Christopher D'Souza

    They have done tests and found that all the panic about wireless signals is in the mind. Volunteers have been told wifi and bluetooth have been on when they haven't and reported the same symptoms. All the experiments have shown is if you think it is affecting you, you show symptoms. If you don't know it is on, nobody reports any ill effects. The Panorama you mentioned is highly biased and based on very dubious 'science' as a lot of panorama shows have been recently. Scaremongering makes for a more interesting TV show, telling everyone things are OK doesn't get viewers. It was even reported on the register about how bad this show was.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/03/panorama_wifi_fear_wristslap/

    My uncle has severe MS, he is confined to a wheelchair and his wireless and bluetooth don't affect him at all. This is more than likely due to the fact he uses his common sense and doesn't believe all the scaremongering. You get more radiation from the sun, or from TV signals but I'm betting they don't affect you.

    Back to topic, this is yet another reason for me to only turn bluetooth on when I need it and leave it off for the rest of the time. We get bombarded with enough ads as it is.

  21. Fluffykins Silver badge

    It's just like any other push-in-your-face advertising

    Well, if I'm out and about and some stupid twunt from the bottom of the marketing foodchain tries to push halfbrained advertising in my direction, I offer to read it and act on it as I see fit for a fee of £50 per item. That usually puts the idiot off and, assuming they have enough cranial capability to spare for memory, they might just remember to avoid me in the future.

    Quite honestly, I don't see any difference between some twit trying to stop me in the street and tell me about double glazing, and the same undesirable trying to send it to my bluetooth.

    Yes, I could always set by phone to non-discoverable but, there again, I don't go out wearing ear defenders and a blindfold just so I can't be assailed by marketing muppets.

    On that basis, here's the pitch to anyone trying to bluejack me without an invitation, in order to send me marketing malwords.

    I'll go around, without a blindfold, ear defenders and with my bluetooth set to discoverable, if I so choose. If you want to send me unsolicited marketing material, I'll be pleased to receive it, review it and act on it as I, in my sole opinion, see fit, for a fee of £50 per item received. Any attempt at sending me such material will be taken as your unconditional and irrevocable acceptance of my offer.

    If you don't like my terms, just don't bother sending me anything. It's as simple as that.

  22. Quebtn
    Thumb Down

    as a luddite

    It takes me a week to notice i have a text from the wife and i use my phone every day :)

    The offers would have expired by the time i notice them

    OO small though .. i need a phone with bluetooth

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Reasonably cool but ultimately pointless.

    Natwest and MS were around a few days ago giving away copies of Office 2007, Vista and Webcams. To "win" you only had to turn your phone's bluetooth on and they would send you a code to claim your prize with.

    I thought the devices were quite cool (battery powered and about the same size as an 8-port switch), but once I won a copy of Vista (of no use to me) and traded it in for a MS Webcam (of little use to me, especially as the £10 one I got from Tesco's was better) I turned bluetooth off and walked away.

    And the range was about 10m - covering a stadium filled with moving people is going to be fun!

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