I was listening away to some ear blistering metal, as I often do, and an ad really jumped out at me.
If you can?t see what is written in the HTC ad to the right, click on the image. What is displayed is a cross-correlation of several points of analytics data. Before I jump right in and start explaining each point, think about what is going on with this ad. This is by no means just some simple ad, there are a number of things going on here.
First data point. Sprint & HTC, or whoever it is that put this ad together, has retrieved my listening favorites from Pandora. Just looking at the bands listed shows that to be self evident. This also seems to be the most obvious piece of data they could have collected about me, since I am logged into Pandora. This is probably achieved by some web services or other API that Pandora provides advertisers.
The second data point is not immediately noticeable. I am still at a loss to explain where they retrieved this data point. What is it? Concert dates for bands. Each of the bands listed in the HTC app that is displayed is a coming show. Matter of fact, it almost seemed like they had shown me my own HTC, except I don't own one. š
Now my location data, I am suspecting probably came from Pandora too, but it is the third point regardless. All together the ad utilizes geo-positional location, my Pandora music preferences, and pulls local concerts from another source (maybe a Pandora listing too?). This is a perfect use of preferences to display things that are truly relevant to me.
In addition, they may have just helped to sell me on a new phone for my personal line. I am up for a replacement and anything that runs Google Droid seems cool, but I?ll admit, with the sneak peaks at Windows 7 Mobile that I've seen and the proposed ability to use Silverlight ? I WILL BE switching from the iPhone when that is released.
