Advertising-ware on the Rise
Like most Palm OS developers, I constantly try out other Palm OS programs since I love expanding the power of the device. One trend I've noticed lately is an increase in the number of advertising-sponsored programs. The earliest examples on the Palm of which I know were the Eruptor.com PortaPets that Minor Demons did back in 2000. They also did a similar app (Alien Detector) for the Sci-Fi Channel.
Aaron Ardiri's Wimbledon PDAce is a cool tennis game done as part of an IBM e-business campaign. A little IBM logo shows on the screen during gameplay, but otherwise its not obtrusive.
Just recently, Crimson Fire made a custom adventure game called Jaguar Journey for the magazine Maxim and the car manufacturer Jaguar. It is tied in with a promotional contest, with game score submitted for consideration by a custom Hotsync conduit. The game is a pretty simple choose-your-own-adventure with good graphics, and whenever you start it, you get ads for the contest sponsors, and the game content itself if heavy on promoting the cars.
The latest example is a new promotion by Acura. They've made the Zagat dining and nightlife guide for the USA free for people registered on Acura's website. The application starts up with an Acura ad, then continues into the main application.
brag screen. It has ratings and reviews of over 18,000 restaurants
in 31 US locations and nightlife reviews in NY and LA. This one comes courtesy of http://www.acura.com/perfectdrive; you have to click on the Dine picture in the popup window to get to the download.
I really don't mind this kind of software, as long as its done tastefully and it doesn't intrude on the use of the handheld for other functions or spy on the user.
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Copyright © 2004 Benjamin L. Combee
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The views expressed on this website/weblog are those of mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of PalmSource or Metrowerks.
qwertYAK / frobnovich
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