‘Over here in Oz, there’s some kind of magazine that’s advertising it’s latest cover all over the bus-stops etc. The one I walk past every day has had quite a few different posters in it.
For the past week or so, it’s been a big picture of Uma’s head/torso staring at me. It’s kind of haunting.
And this morning it got me thinking.
What instances within Development do we have the chance to bombard our users with whatever kind of advertising we wish?
Well, firstly. I think there will be some new-fangled stuff coming along in the next couple of years. Innovation isn’t done yet in our domain.
But the biggest one that springs to mind is … Loading Screens.
Of course, these are mainly within the realm of games, but not entirely. The OS gets a chance. Adobe software has it in the splash screen that starts up, running all the initialisation stuff. Which is entirely similar to how Sims did it. "Reticulating Splines" in-particular has stayed in my memory, even though it was my wife who played the game.
But Loading Screens, and other minor off-shoot paradigm-ee screens, are very effective when done well. Most games these days give you hints about the game. General hints. Some pictures of some format or another will appear.
I installed Oblivion last night, and it had some cool pictures on install.
World of Warcraft has recently upgraded to giving hint out on their loading screen. Along with cool drawings of their world (these were always there, well, since retail at least).
But what about other forms of software? Surely there are ways to subtly ingrate some form of advertising, whether it be of the product in question, or other, more calculated, subjects.
The problem with software, business software mostly, is that people don’t want to wait. I want to fire the program up and use it.
So that just means that the advertising has to be smarter. Games have an in. People are willing to accept some length of load times.
But other applications need to look at things differently. I’m not sure about where this thought is headed. I don’t have anything definitive yet .. but it’s not a bad one.
And anyway, this thought has run it’s course for the moment.
So if you’ve got some ideas, comment away. If not .. (with the sound of the Hypno-Toad) Comment Away.