Born Mobile? Qualcomm’s innovative ad campaign brings a few surprises to an otherwise boring bus stop

February 21, 2013 at 9:44 am

Moral of the story, don’t hesitate to use your darn mobile phone when you are standing at that unassumingly boring plain vanilla bus stop.  In this campaign, mobile electronics firm Qualcomm put up a poster featuring a URL and waited for people to visit the mobile site. When the visitors got to the website, the fun began. Watch to see what happens at probably what I call the best bus stop ever. Sigh! I wish my bus stop would offer something like this to spice up my sleepy mornings.

 

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29G Memoir – An expatriate’s nostalgic recollection of commuting by bus in Chennai, India

September 7, 2010 at 6:24 pm

(Source:  RealTalkies)

I can relate to almost everything in this nice blog post. I enjoyed a fair share of the experiences described by the author, who fondly recollects her memories riding a bus during her college days (in the 1990s) in the Southern India city of Chennai (formerly known as Madras)!  For those not in the know, Chennai is one of the top four cities in India – in terms of population, investment, etc and has a relatively good transportation network that is affordable for the masses.

These days I should not be complaining about my daily commute after living through some of these experiences. As dangerous as it sounds, most of my commutes to work and school back in India involved holding on to a window grill for dear life with just one hand and only one foot on the bus’ steps  as it whizzed by at 60km/hr. For crying out loud, the country has 1.3 billion people and at times it felt like as if the entire citizenry of the nation decided to ride the very bus that I took to school/work!

Those days all the Chennai Metro buses where painted with green and off-white stripes. When a large rectangular mass of green and off-white stripes appears on the horizon, everyone in the bus stop perks up and strains to see the number on the white board over the large windshield. The ones with better vision are lucky, because after seeing the number, they get 30 seconds more to decide where to position themselves to improve their chances of boarding the bus.  My vision was terrible and hence my strategy was as good as a coin toss.

On a few lucky days, I am the first at the entrance. Drones of people embark and disembark the bus through the two entrances in no particular order. The goal is to get in and out of the bus before the conductor blows the godforsaken whistle and the bus begins to move. People still continue to board the moving bus.

Inside the bus,  I manage to pull out my free bus pass and the conductor punches a hole to mark my free government permitted ride to school for the day. It is almost impossible to explain how crowded the bus gets. The closest analogy I can give is, it feels like sardines packed in a can.  I am swept into the bus and get jammed in the middle. I am suspended in that space. My body is in physical contact with several bodies at various points inside that tight packed space. It is like I have been mapped in the cosmos.

The Chennai Metro bus is a social space; one that is  similar to a school, hospital, church, sports club, gym or dance studio. There are certain set of unwritten rules for engagement and obligations to fulfill. By default there are more assigned seats for men than women, generally women sit in the right side of the bus and men on the left. When the bus is crowded a man has to vacate a designated woman’s seat but the converse is not true.

If a woman or a really old man is getting on a moving bus, then more than a few concerned citizens will bang on the steel bus and it will screech to a halt to allow them to get in. If it is just a bunch of guys they would just have to hang for dear life on the windows bars and somehow swing and get their feet on the steps of the bus or just cling to the bus. They still have to pay their fare for the bus ride, as it is gets them to their destination faster than if they run or walk.

If a man is hanging outside, then it is your duty as a passenger who is secure inside the bus to grab their belongings – backpack, lunch bag, etc and keep it secure. If you get off the bus before the guy does, pass it on to someone else for safekeeping. A woman, no matter how agile or skilled is not supposed to hang onto the window or stand on the steps of a moving bus. For some weird reason a disabled or incapacitated woman is more of a societal liability than a handicapped man. Therefore, again the dutiful citizens in the bus tell the woman to get to safety.

Click here to read the entire article.  Here are some fun pictures

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Bringing Sexy Back … To A British Bus-Station!!!

July 24, 2010 at 11:44 am

(Source: via Fast Company)

Image Courtesy: Bustler

Image Courtesy: Bustler

Image Courtesy: Bustler

At the first glimpse, it looks like an awkwardly shaped UFO.. Oh, but it is not! This is the futuristic bus stop proposed for the humble English town of Stoke-o-Trent, which wants to build a new city bus station.  Now, for those of us who are used to conjuring up images of a bus stop – the quintessential dingy floors, chaotic bus parking bays, bums hanging around the corner, etc..- this comes as a sweet shocker, this one by designer team Austin Smith Lord would create what is surely the world’s most futuristic bus depot.  These images show bus stops doesn’t have to be ugly and creepy – they can be functional while looking stunningly beautiful.

Austin Smith Lord was the people’s choice winner against stiff competition, which included Wilkinson Eyre and Zaha Hadid. (The winner was a plan by Grimshaw Architects.) Though the Austin Smith Lord design concept looks bizzare, it is moored to a brilliant logic: The main performance feature is a flowing layout that allows buses to enter and exit without ever having to back out of a parking space.

Loving the Brits for encouraging such outta the box concept design.

Click here to read more and to view more pictures.

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Evolutionary Leap – Intelligent Bus Stop Billboard Delivers Brilliant Message for Amnesty International

July 1, 2009 at 1:45 pm

(Source:  Copyranter via Dvice via Gizmodo)

Image Courtesy: Gizmodo

This bus stop ad for Amnesty International’s anti-domestic-abuse campaign is installed in Hamburg, Germany. It is equal parts clever and shocking: when you look at the photo, it’s a smiling couple; when you look away, it’s a dude punchin’ a lady.

The billboard works by scanning its proximity with an eye-tracking camera, which triggers an image switch on the display panel when it senses someone looking at it. The change only occurs after a brief delay, so that observers understand what’s going on, and get the message.  Brilliant!

TransportGooru Musings:  It reminds me of  a scene from one of the sci-fi movies  (I think it is Minority Report) where a hero is walking through the Mall and the wall mounted display consoles will recognize the his identity and start showing voice and video advertisements that are tailored to his consumer profile (the ads sell a particular product based on the person’s previous buying habits, or something like that).   This Amnesty Ad campaign brings us one step closer to that stage where information will be tailored and delivered on the spot  based on the individual viewer’s personal preferences/consumer profile sitting in a database somewhere (this is not even remotely possible now because the behavioral & purchase patterns of the consumer should be captured and mapped in a single database first, which means privacy issues and other such crap needs to be addressed; we are talking big ticket issues data ownership, privacy, and other such public policy issues).  But it is big money in the making for whoever wanting to do this!