The evolving market of the localized distribution of information associated with a particular place, group or time, is a perfect application for Bluetooth technology, where transmissions are targeting nearby individuals.

Communication may be further targeted to specific groups within a given location, for example content in tourist hot spots may only be distributed to devices registered to a global service, providing personalized guidance. And it may be both time and place specific, e.g. content at a conference venue may depend on the event in progress.

Uses of proximity marketing include distribution of media at concerts, information (weblinks on local facilities), gaming and social applications, and advertising. The main advantages include:

• Speed - Content is delivered to mobile phones in seconds
• Cost - Significantly cheaper than direct mail, gsm/gprs messages or other media
• Interactivity - Interact with or engage consumers nearby
• Proximity - The mobile phone is always in the consumer's pocket
• Viral - Content shareability factor allows for epidemic phenomenon.

BLUEdev firmly believes that the technological know-how, the scientific background and the long experience it possesses in the area of Bluetooth and embedded systems, place us ahead from competitors, and can be successfully employed in the development of proximity marketing solutions and provide for a high added value to the final system. Our engineers have been involved in the Bluetooth market since its origin, early in 1998 in Atlanta, when the first Bluetooth conference took place. Since then, we had a high activity in this sector, as we have been participating in the development of several products ranging from IP blocks to software modules in order to implement various levels of the Bluetooth protocol stack. And we were keeping track of the progress and evolutions of the standard by participating in Bluetooth unplug Fests and international exhibitions in order to ensure compatibility and get close to our customers, and by contributing to the technical press with technology evaluation reports (e.g. http://www.commsdesign.com/main/2000/02/0002blue.htm).

Taken into account all the accumulated experience, we efficiently design a wide variety of applications and solutions for the proximity marketing sector, performing activities that may include (re)design and production of the system board, the operating and/or controlling software and even the plastic cover of the commercial product as well.

Some implementations of Bluetooth proximity marketing require users to run Java applications on their phones to enable them to receive content; this approach has the advantage that only those who to choose to will receive content. Others require no handset-side software and serve any accessible user in the area:

• Broadcast location-based coupons.
• Contextual advertising.
• Localized information.
  • Outdoor festivals, concerts, sporting events, parades
  • Charity fundraisers, pageants
  • Trade shows
• Gaming and music.
• Content on demand.
  • Text, image, audio and video files
  • Barcodes
  • Ringtones
  • Java applications
  • VCAL and vCard objects
  • SMS and MMS