Archive for January, 2010

Interactive Mentos Kiss campaign

January 26th, 2010 by Marc

Mentos Kiss

Perfetti Van Melle are currently running an exciting campaign called “For Diamond Whiteness” to promote their new product Mentos Kiss.

They choose printed flyers as one of their lead communications medium. To create an interaction with their brand they partnered up with us to kooabaize their flyer.

Consumers are asked to snap a picture of the Mentos flyer with the camera of their mobile phone and send it to kooaba in order to have the chance to win very attractive prizes such as a trip to the MTV Europe Music Awards 2010, an Apple iPhone or a Nintendo Wii video game console. Once the image has been recognized by kooaba’s recognition technology, the consumer enters the sweepstake.

If you like our campaign please vote for it on XIPAX. We appreciate it!

Tags: ,
Posted in Mobile Marketing, kooaba | No Comments »

First kooabaized daily newspaper

January 20th, 2010 by Marc

Blick frontpageStarting today Blick readers are able to interact with the physical publication via mobile using kooaba for iPhone and Android. With a circulation of more that 200,000 and a readership of almost 700,000 Blick is Switzerland’s largest paid daily newspaper.

Every single page in Blick is kooabaized. This means readers can snap a picture of any page they’re interested in using our smartphone app. Once kooaba’s image recognition technology finds the corresponding digital version of it, readers can easily comment or recommend the article to friends using email, Facebook or Twitter.

If the reader signed up for a kooaba account all these pages will automatically be stored in his personal kooaba library. Bookmarking in the real world becomes reality and the pages can be easily accessed anytime. This can be handy if you want to remember certain articles in order to read them at home on the big screen, keep them for reference, or share them with friends.

Besides sharing and remembering (storing) pages readers can explore additional content on selected stories which have been enriched with videos, images or links to other relevant articles on websites.

Ultimately static print ads become interactive and offer a unique digital channel to the publisher, advertisers and the readers.

Pages which contain additional content are marked with the kooaba logo. To help the reader discover the added value.

Please find below some impressions from today’s issue:

Snap a picture of any pageResults on iPhonekooaba Library

A snapshot of ANY page with kooaba is enough to explore (additional) content, share the story with friends and remember it.

You can find more information about our partnership in the German press release, the full page article about the service on our library and a “how to” video on blick.ch/kooaba.

Hint: Simply snap a picture of Blick’s frontpage with kooaba to get additional images of today’s Blick girl. It even works off the screen.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Interactive Print, Newsletter, kooaba | 3 Comments »

kooaba wins Red Herring Global 100 award

January 19th, 2010 by Marc

Red Herring Global 100Red Herring on Friday announced its Global 100 award in recognition of the leading private companies from North America, Europe, and Asia, celebrating these startups’ innovations and technologies across their respective industries. We’re very proud that kooaba has been chosen as one of the most important 100 young companies in the world to watch!

Red Herring’s Global 100 list has become a mark of distinction for identifying promising new companies and entrepreneurs. Red Herring editors were among the first to recognize that companies such as Google, Yahoo, Skype, Netscape, Salesforce.com, YouTube, and eBay would change the way we live and work.

“Choosing the best out of the previous three years was by no means a small feat,” said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. “After rigorous contemplation and discussion, we narrowed down our list from 1,200 potential companies to 200 finalists.  Trying to get it down to 100 companies was a task upon itself.  The top 100 companies who were chosen should be extremely proud, the competition was difficult.”

Red Herring’s editorial staff evaluated the companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, management quality, strategy, and market penetration. This assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the track record and standing of startups relative to their sector peers, allowing Red Herring to see past the “buzz” and make the list an invaluable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the greatest business opportunities from around the world.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in kooaba | 1 Comment »

New features in kooaba for iPhone

January 11th, 2010 by Marc

We’re proud to announce that we’ve just launched two great new features for our iPhone app. These are

Multiple Results

Many images on media covers are used for different editions (e.g. for the regular album, the extended japanese version and the limited collector’s edition). Or they are used for related products (e.g. for the soundtrack, the DVD and the movie poster). With Multiple Results it’s now possible to explore all editions and products which share the same packshot once you took a picture of one of them with kooaba. You can see an example in the video below with the soundtrack of “Quantum of Solace”. Or try it yourself and snap a picture of Coldplay’s album cover “Viva la Vida“. You will be surprised how many products share that image – not limited to music!

Login Status Display

You can use kooaba’s visual search for media products and interactive print magazines and newspapers right away and without entering any login details to explore additional related information about them. Although you miss a great part of our solution if you don’t have a kooaba account: our handy online library. This is where all your search queries and related information are stored for later reference and where you can share your explored products and articles with your friends. We developed the Login Status Display feature to tell you if you’re logged in every time you start kooaba on your iPhone. This way you don’t have to check your settings if you’re unsure if you entered your login details.

Please have a closer look at both features in this video:

And…

kooaba also got faster and better! Recently we deployed a significantly faster version of our core engine, plus larger index.

Please let us know what you think of the new features!

Btw. It took Apple only six (!) hours after the submission to approve our latest update of the kooaba app. We like that.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Mobile Applications, Newsletter, kooaba | No Comments »

CHIP magazine is kooabized

January 8th, 2010 by Marc

CHIP 02/2010We’re very excited to announce our partnership with CHIP – one of Germany’s largest computer and communication magazines. Their entire German relaunch issue 02/2010 is now interactive.

Besides many great new extras inside the magazine, iPhone and Android users with the kooaba app can snap a picture of any page inside the magazine they’re interested in. After the image (we call it “Smart Visual”) is recognized, kooaba finds the digital version of the article the user took a picture of.

After this process the mobile application leads the user to a result page where he can explore, remember and share the article.

Let us give you an example with the article about IT milestones of the last 10 years on page 19. Once you took a picture of it with kooaba you can:

- Explore additional content about the story

(e.g. watch a video about the first iPod presentation by Steve Jobs back in 2001 right on your mobile phone)

- Remember it
(e.g. because you want to download Firefox as an alternative to your existing web browser when you’re at home)

- Share that page with friends
(e.g. send them a link to the article by email and point out that the iPod is among them)

Now grab the latest CHIP issue and try it. And by the way, there’s a great article (1/2) about kooaba in it.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Interactive Print, Newsletter, kooaba | No Comments »

kooaba is a Finalist for the Red Herring 100 Global Award

January 5th, 2010 by Marc

Finalistskooaba has been selected as a finalist for Red Herring’s Global 100 award, a prestigious list honoring the year’s most promising private technology ventures from around the world.

The Red Herring editorial team selected the most innovative companies from a pool of 1′200. The nominees are evaluated on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, quality of management, execution of strategy, and integration into their respective industries.

This unique assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the actual track record and standing of a company, which allows Red Herring to see past the “buzz” and make the list an invaluable instrument for discovering and advocating the greatest business opportunities in the industry.

“This year was especially difficult,” said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. “Despite the global economic situation, there were many great companies producing really innovative and amazing products that we had a difficult time narrowing the pool and selecting the finalists. Now we’re faced with the arduous task of selecting the final 100 winners of the award. We know that this year’s crop will grow into some amazing companies that are sure to go far.”

Finalists for the 2009 edition of the Red Herring Global 100 award are selected from the regional recipients or finalists of the Red Herring 100 awards in 2007, 2008, or 2009 ranging from Asia, Europe, and North America. For the past three years, the award has been given to the top 100 global technology companies based upon their technological innovation, management strength, market size, investor record, customer acquisition, and financial health. During the several months leading up to the announcement, hundreds of companies in the telecommunications, security, Web 2.0, software, hardware, biotech, and clean tech industries sent in their submissions to qualify for the award.

The CEOs of the 200 finalists are invited to present their winning strategies at the Red Herring Global Conference in Laguna Niguel, California, January 12-14, 2010.  The Top 100 winners will be announced at a special awards ceremony at the event.

About Red Herring
Red Herring is a global media company uniting the world’s best high-technology innovators, venture investors, and business decision-makers in a variety of forums: a leading innovation magazine, an online daily technology news service, technology newsletters, and major events for technology leaders around the globe. Red Herring provides an insider’s view of the global innovation ecosystem, featuring unparalleled insights on the emerging technologies driving the economy.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Newsletter, kooaba | No Comments »