Sonic Notify: Taking Hyper Local Technology To New Levels of Local-ness
So I got the question the other day that was one of those deceptively simple questions: “So what do you think are the most interesting and exciting location based businesses you’ve seen out there recently?” And immediately a couple dozen companies popped into my mind, and I immediately started hedging, well there are a lot of them, which are interesting and exciting all for different reasons.
I happen to be particularly interested in the area of local and location based search and data, but since I had already talked a lot about companies dealing with data like PlaceIQ, Retailigence, Locu and HyperPublic, I instead ended up talking about an offering called Sonic Notify which was created by a NYC digital “ideas agency” called DenseBrain.
To grossly simplify it, Sonic Notify is a system that transmits a sound that can be received by a mobile phone, which can then trigger some sort of event on the mobile device that is within range and contains the Sonic Notify software. There is no consumer Sonic Notify product out there, instead it’s a capability that the company hopes will be embraced by marketers to power their own initiatives.
The idea stemmed out of conversations that the company was having with a client Proctor and Gamble, and talking about services like ShopKick and how it would be interesting to look at technology to be able to communicate and connect with customers down at the aisle level or product level, as opposed to the store level.
There are two main components to the system, the side that can broadcast out the sonic signal (which is inaudible to people) and the software on the phone which can pick out the signal and trigger the action.
Sending the signal seems pretty straight forward, it seems that standard speakers for PA systems, TVs, computers etc can all do the job. The company has also investigated very small and disposable mobile audio beacons that can broadcast out the audio signal for vey short range situations such as from within name tags and badges for conference attendees.
Receiving and processing the signal seems to be where much of the Sonic Notify IP comes in. Phones which contain the application, need to decipher the signal amongst all the noise, and then once the signal is verified, instruct the phone as to what to do next… trigger a push notification, open a browser, send an email or text, etc.
The application can act in both an active and a passive mode, meaning you can set it up where a user would need to open up an app before the phone would begin listening for the SonicNotify signal (active, like how ShopKick currently works), or where the phone would just listen for the signal behind the scenes (passive). I asked the company how operating in passive mode effected the battery life of a mobile phone and they said that they had come up with some work arounds to only switch a phone into active mode when it sensed it was within range of a certain wider (wi-fi) network known to be nearby to the beacons, with one approach using a SSID broadcaster as an easy alternative to setting up a fully connected new network.
In much the same way that scanning a QR code can trigger a variety of actons, Sonic Notify, does the same thing, except without a user having to do anything (in passive mode) except enter within range of a speaker broadcasting the Sonic Notify signal… which can have a range of only a few feet or can cover a large area like a sports stadium.
Once the phone successfully “hears” the signal is when the interesting stuff begins. The potential seems immense. Some obvious application for someone like P&G include presenting coupons for Tide to customers standing in front of the cleaning products aisle. The company is also looking closely at the area of social interaction, or providing a super simple way to share contact information with people you meet at a industry trade show,
Now we’ve seen passive place based triggers before, folks like Xtify and Placecast among others leverage Alcatel Lucent geo fencing tech to do similar things, but they’re more designed for covering wide areas to pull folks into a nearby retailer. SonicNotify on the other hand seems like a nice complement to those technologies for situations where you’re working with a smaller environment.
ShopKick offers a similar solution but relies on the user remembering to open the app when they go to stores, using the usual badges and point schemes to try to get folks to remember to use it. SonicNotify seems to offer a more flexible platform.
I particularly like the potential at the retail store level. I for one wouldn’t mind getting a push notification as I enter a retailer asking if I’d like help, and giving me the option to explore sales and specials happening in the store, or researching items I am there to purchase. I am after all entering into the store, and expect to receive service… and if I am not interested I can simply ignore it and it will go away. It seems to me that you could use SonicNotify to simply push the option of in store customer service out to customers as they walk into the store via their phones… you can see how a retailer may want to layer on interesting services like bookmarking ala Matchbook (“hey did you enjoy our restaurant, save us to your phone and share us with your friends”) or a white labeled check in loyalty service (“let us know each time you come and we’ll give you rewards”) or even allowing folks to look into product availability inventory (Retailigence) and get reviews and details on items available within the store.
Using hybrid positioning systems that reach indoor should in theory make an in-store customer service type “portal” do-able, but just maybe delivering a local experience really requires a local systems, if for no other reason then to be sure the customer feels like they’re getting a message as a direct and readily apparent result of the door they just walked through or the items they’re standing in front of.
It’s hard to say which way things will go, there is certainly a huge advantage of not having to set up technology at individual stores, but it may just work better that way. I certainly give Sonic Notify credit for trying a new angle.
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Ankit Agarwal
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