Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Massive San Francisco Touch Screen Makes Riding MUNI Palatable, Perhaps Even Fun

by Max Willens on December 2, 2010 at 07:31 AM

In the past couple years, the experience of waiting for public transportation has morphed into a daily opportunity to play around with the electronic device of your choice. And, for the next two months in San Francisco, Yahoo will be trying to take that experience one step further.

As part of an ingenious marketing campaign called Bus Stop Derby, the search corporation has installed 20 enormous touch video screens (72 inches tall!) at bus stops in distinct neighborhoods around the city. Folks who are waiting for their MUNI buses are invited to play games, and the points they score are added to a neighborhood total. The 'hood with the highest score on January 28th wins tickets to an OK Go concert (yay?), and bragging rights of some kind (maybe?).

Location-based promotions are on the rise, and that is -- in your writer's opinion -- a good thing. But it would be even more exciting if companies started to use these tactics to rally real-life communities to action. Imagine a county-wide recycling competition, or group clothing drives....

Tags: BusStopDerby, gaming, ipad, marketing, MarketingCampaign, media, muni, SanFrancisco, TabletPc, tablets, top, touchscreen, Yahoo

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular