LocaModa lights up Times Square
LocaModa Inc. said today that its technology has been incorporated into a huge billboard in New York City's Times Square.
The Cambridge company specializes in a technology that lets people use cellphones to send messages or pictures to video screens scattered around late night hot spots and other venues where people socialize, a Jan. 1 Globe story noted.
As for Times Square, LocaModa announced today its "platform integration" with a billboard operated by a unit of Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc. - a billboard that in essence is a giant HD video screen.
LocaModa said its platform "enables out-of-home signage to be controlled by mobile consumers and visible from the Web."
The first LocaModa application on the Times Square screen is Jumbli, a text-messaging word game; players who submit the highest scoring words from their cellphones see their names on the billboard, LocaModa said.
Such technology isn't just about fun and games; LocaModa and Clear Channel see it as having potential to generate large amounts of advertising revenue.
Harry Coghlan, president of Clear Channel Spectacolor, said in a statement: "With LocaModa's technology integrated into Spectacolor HD, our advertisers now have the ability to not only attract people in Times Square, but also to interact with them via their mobile phones and the Web. This is the start of a revolution in out-of-home advertising, one in which users can choose to engage with brands while brands get Web-like measurability."
LocaModa noted that the Jumbli game on the Times Square screen is also playable from the Web and that winning words played from the Web will also be displayed on Times Square.
LocaModa added that Jumbli and any of its other interactive applications can also incorporate the branding messages of advertisers.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)
