Proteus Develops 2-Screen-ITV "ADBOWL" App for Sprint PCS Phones
Viewers of next Sunday's Super Bowl American football championship will be given a chance to rank the accompanying commercials by taking part in the annual "ADBOWL." Ad agency, McKee Wallwork Henderson, which started the ADBOWL 3 years ago, is for the first time promoting it to the general viewing public (in previous years, it was targeted primarily at ad-industry executives). Viewers will be able to use their Sprint PCS mobile phones or go to a special Web site (www.adbowl.com) to vote for their favorite commercial, with the 10 winning and losing commercials being announced at the end of the broadcast.
This will be the first time that wireless voting has been enabled for the ADBOWL. Sprint PCS owners who register to take part (they can register any time during the game or the preceding week) will receive a text message on their phone at the end of each quarter. The message will invite them to use their phone's keypad to rate each ad that aired during that quarter on a 1-5 scale, ranging from "fumble" (#1) to "touchdown" (#5).
(Note: Sprint PCS phone owners who choose not to pre-register will still be able to take part: when they open their phone's browser, the voting app will appear on the top level.) Viewers will also be able to use their PCS phones throughout the broadcast to take part in trivia quizzes about advertising and football. The broadcast-synchronized application that will enable wireless voting was built by Proteus (a specialist in creating ITV services that are based on wireless devices), and utilizes WAP-push technology via Openwave's Push Proxy Gateway (Openwave develops open software products for the mobile telecom industry). According to Craig Dalton, director of business development at Proteus, this will be the first commercial implementation in the US of a WAP-push messaging solution. Though it will also work with standard 2G Internet-equipped Sprint phones, the Proteus application takes advantage of Sprint's new, higher- bandwidth 3G "PCS Vision" data service which supports full-color display (Proteus' technology determines which Internet-access technology is supported by the viewer's phone, and automatically provides the appropriate interface).
[itvt] asked Dalton why McKee Wallwork Henderson had decided to enable wireless voting this year: "By putting wireless apps in the viewers' hands, it's a lot easier to get them to vote. It's harder to motivate them to get up and use their computer," he said. "Our wireless app puts a 2nd screen within reach."
This will not be the first time that Proteus has enabled wireless ITV voting for a major sporting event: the company collaborated with Sprint on "Wireless Virtual Coach," a poll game that accompanied the Fox network's broadcasts of 2002/3-season NFC division football games (see [itvt] Issue 4.73 9/30/02); and, last June, it collaborated with Cingular, FoxSports and NASCAR on an instant-polling application that accompanied broadcasts of the Sears Satellite Radio 400, Dodge Savemart 350, and Pepsi 400 races (see [itvt] Issue 4.69 9/9/02).
[This is from an excellent Interactive TV newsletter I get called "ITVT". It's written by Tracy Swedlow.]
BTW Sports seems to be where LOTS of new forms of Interactivity is fostered and launched. Sports fans love to get nerdy and vote or bet. This ADbowl thing is not the only thing going on during the SuperBowl. 5 years ago we did a flat panel display attached to 600 seats at SuperBowl XXXII - at the same stadium in San Diego - Jack Murphy stadium - where the SuperBowl is this Sunday. It was called ChoiceSeat.
Newsweek: 
