Mobile Marketing has usually been an “early adopter” of all new mobile technologies: agencies and brands have been good at figuring out how some new technology can be used to increase engagement, demand attention, or build loyalty (think about AR, mobile apps, accelerometers, location, etc.)

Here is a really interesting new technology demonstration from Google, showing off one of the features of HTML 5 that is in Chrome. We don’t think we’ve seen this in a mobile marketing campaign yet, but we’re sure some innovative agency will start soon!

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Google occasionally releases what they call a “Chrome Experiment”: a demonstration of something leading edge that can done using their browser Chrome.

Google’s latest Chrome Experiment was the release two cross-platform games that show how HTML 5 can be used for real time interaction between multiple devices that are running Chrome. Each of these games makes use of a technology called “websockets”, which lets client devices (eg mobile handsets or PC’s) communicate and keep synchronized more easily in real time.

In the first case, Racer is an old-style car racing game. What makes it interesting is that there are multiple players, each using their own device as a controller. And more interesting, the track actually runs across all devices as well!

And then when the race it over, each player’s screen displays their finishing position.

Check out this video which shows Racer in action:

Racer is not an app, it is strictly standard browser based internet providing all this multiplayer interactivity.

The second game is called Roll It. It is a classic bowling game, except that it is played across a mobile and a PC.

The player uses their mobile as a controller. With just a flick of the wrist, the ball is aimed and launched. Meanwhile, the PC renders the 3D graphics of the alley and the ball, and they are displayed on the screen of the PC.

Check out this video which shows Roll It in action.

Again, HTML 5 websockets technology is used to synchronize the activity of the handset and the PC. And its important to realize that there are no apps involved, it is purely web based interactivity.

While its clear that these two projects are purely intended to be examples, it seems quiet clear that interactivity of this sort – i.e. closely synchronized action for multiple people across multiple types of devices all through the web – could have some interesting application in mobile marketing.

22.06.2013    Tags: games, Google, innovation, mobile-internet