*It's a press release – but it's kinda dumb not to watch out for the doings of the Big Blue Monster. "Change the world or go home," boys.
Good morning Bruce, (((Yo!)))
Today, Microsoft announced that Tag is officially coming out of its ‘beta’ phase of product development. Since Tag launched in January 2009, more than one billion Tags have been created by people and businesses all over the world. (((That's kind of a lot, considering that I've never interacted with one.)))
In the month of April alone, more than 20 million magazines with Tags were in the hands of U.S. consumers. As part of the move out of beta, basic use of Tag is free - meaning that for no charge, customers can download the reader and scan Tags, as well as create their own Tags to perform basic functions.
We’ve also refined certain functionalities and are introducing some new features that will enhance customers’ ability to create, execute and track creative Tag campaigns:
Device ID feature – allows marketers to deliver a more personalized consumer experience across multiple Tags
A .tag file format – makes it easier to print large numbers of Tags as part of a broad campaign deployment
Also, in the near future, Microsoft will offer a free Heat Map feature that helps companies better track Tag usage by location and make more informed decisions about their campaigns.
Finally, based on feedback we heard from marketers, Microsoft is developing an additional set of value-added services it will eventually roll out to customers wanting functionality such as advanced reporting and analytics and location based services. We will add these features over time so stay tuned for more on this in the near future. Until then, more information can be found here:
Microsoft News Center Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2010/05/27/beyond-beta-microsoft-tag-takes-off.aspx
Microsoft Tag blog: http://tag.microsoft.com/community/blog.aspx
Please let me know if you have any questions or if you would like to speak to someone more in-depth about today’s announcement.
Thanks,
Pete
