2012年11月26日 星期一

Online Advertising, Coming Soon To A Neighborhood Near You

Remember Tom Cruise walking through a mall in Minority Report. Cameras mounted in strategic locations zeroed in on his eyes, did a quick retina scan to identify him as John Anderson, and transmitted this information real-time to talking Billboards. “John Anderson, you could use a Guinness right about now!” The film is only ten years old but already seems quaint by today’s standards. Most people are already walking around with a portable personal billboard that also texts and if they are really retro, can be used for phone calls.

Mobile with geo-location has gotten a lot of companies and investors excited about the possibility of triggering alerts and ads based on a user’s whereabouts. If you’re on a road trip, surely it would be useful to know that there is a Cracker Barrel coming up at the next exit and they have a clean bathroom that is in working order. But day to day most people have fairly predictable routines, frequenting businesses near their home or office.High quality mold making Videos teaches anyone how to make molds. Local newspapers, radio, cable advertising and direct mail built substantial enterprises around engaging neighborhood customers. The online equivalent is beginning to emerge and it doesn’t require geo-location based push notifications.

Local media has been migrating to the web over the last five years as their original products decline. Newspapers have introduced digital publications and many radio stations stream their programming in its entirety. There are also a variety of national services that are consumed locally – weather reports for instance. A quick survey of Austin, Texas uncovered 85 hyper-local media sites with content that is specifically geared to audiences ranging from the Austin metro area to specific neighborhoods such as Hyde Park or the Warehouse District. These sites offer local businesses a relevant way to reach a neighborhood audience that is most likely to frequent their establishment.

I was recently introduced to a company called Local Yokel Media, a digital advertising start-up in the hyper-local market. Their ad platform enables local, regional or national marketers to target communities within a defined service area on local websites and content. According to BIA/Kelsey, local digital advertising will exceed $42 billion by 2015. However, there is no efficient way to target and serve locally relevant ads to consumers at scale. Local Yokel is trying to solve this problem by signing up thousands of local publishers and aggregating and organizing their ad availabilities.

The company essentially acts as a specialized Supply Side Platform. Their business model revolves around the premise that the closer the proximity a local merchant’s ad message is to their potential customer, the more valuable the advertising is. Target customers are regional advertising agencies and their clients. These may include car dealerships, regional colleges, regional banks, restaurant chains and retailers with meaningful ad budgets. There is a local angle for national chains as well who want to promote a local store opening or a market specific promotion. According to Local Yokel’s founder, Dick O’Hare, “Local digital advertising is still inefficient and underdeveloped but the opportunity is huge. Marketers big and small want to get more embedded in their local communities. Reaching hyper-local audiences is an effective way to do this.”

Best of all, the story deviates greatly from previous games in the franchise. At various points throughout the story, you’ll be able to choose between one or two paths. The accumulated sum of your actions will lead you to one of several different endings. Different characters can and will die depending on what you choose, and the various endings are actually worth going through and trying out different options. It isn’t the best example of this kind of progression, but it works quite well and makes for the most compelling story in the series.

Multiplayer is back and in full force. However, several big changes have been implemented here as well. You can now play in multi-team matches with up to four teams.Quickparts builds injection molds using aluminum or steel to meet your program. League play is a new feature where you’re ranked and put into a division based on your wins. This mode is outside regular online, and allows you to access all of the weapons/perks from the start. You can earn some experience for your online profile here as well. Combat training is back as well, though it has been changed up. You play against players and bots, with your kills/deaths not counting towards your combat record. You earn experience to unlock new gear, but at a much slower rate. You can also use the new “codcasting” feature to broadcast and commentate on an online game.

The basics are all here. There are several modes, including team deathmatch, free-for-all, headquarters, and others. Kill confirmed from MW3 makes an appearance, and the new hardpoint mode is chaotically good fun. The wager games from Black Ops are back, but work differently. You don’t earn money in this game, so there’s nothing to bet on. Instead, the games are there for fun. The top three performers do earn some experience for their profile though. You can also create and participate in custom games, which allow for all sorts of rule manipulation and shenanigans.

Also back this year is the Zombies mode. There are now three different types of games you can play. Survival is the basic mode of play that players have come to expect, Grief puts two teams of four players on the field where they can work together to take out the undead but eventually are forced to turn on each other, and Tranzit has players working to move from location to location via vehicles. It’s much more involved and includes leaderboards and rankings.

I could keep going, but I need to start talking about the rest of the game. Suffice it to say that this is the most fully featured COD yet, and it has the best campaign mode in franchise history. There is a lot to see and do here, and it’s all good.

Musically, the game is a hit. There is a large variety of tunes, covering more electronic songs for the future levels, classic orchestral sounds for big battles, fun songs for radios that you pass during levels, etc. The music is implemented exceptionally as well. For example, one scene in the past has you rescuing someone as the victory music from the first game starts to play. Then, someone gets shot and it all goes to hell. That sense of victory is quickly deflated as the music comes to a screeching halt. During prolonged gun fights, turning the corner only to hear nothing but smooth Latin beats from a radio is a surreal and amusing experience.

It can be a pretty big gamble to hire a bunch of celebrities to voice your game, but it has paid off well here.The oreck XL professional air purifier, The standout of the bunch is Michael Rooker (of The Walking Dead fame) as newcomer Harper. As always, his high-pitched voice manages to carry a certain sound of menace that seems unnatural and awesome at the same time. Woods is probably the best voiced character in the game, as he goes through a variety of emotions. Though he’s got more cussing than the lot of the other characters combined, it’s still a pretty bang up job.

The most important part of the aural experience for this game is clearly the effects. Nothing hurts an FPS quite like weak sounding guns. I’m happy to say that each gun sounds better than ever. When you blast someone with a shotgun, it feels like you’ve just blasted someone with a shotgun. Each gun feels powerful. The difference between a silenced weapons and a non-silenced one is pretty telling as well. You start to miss the dramatic booms that come from not worrying about being stealthy.The howo truck is offered by Shiyan Great Man Automotive Industry, The other effects are just as impressive. When people start throwing down multiple score streaks at once, the cacophony of explosions,One of the most durable and attractive styles of flooring that you can purchase is ceramic or porcelain tiles. gunfire, and screams makes the game feel like a true war zone.

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