What Can You Do with The Internet of Things?
Wednesday, May 8th, 2013The internet of things is made up of our current computer-based internet plus a wide range of other devices that have a sensor and can send or receive information. These other devices include cameras, personal health monitoring devices, phones, cars, parking spaces, Christmas trees, appliances in your home, dog collars, power meters, traffic sensors, toys, fire alarms and many others. One estimate sees 24 billion devices on the internet of things by the year 2020. That’s more than 3 devices for every person on the planet.
By connecting all of these things to the internet we enable direct machine to machine (M2M) interactions. That means one machine controlling or at least communicating with another via the internet. This will also create a river of big data the likes of which we have never seen and enable new services, marketing opportunities and even business models.
Take for example, Budweiser’s Red Light. This device links to the internet via your WIFI and monitors the games of your favorite hockey teams. When a goal is scored it goes off. This enhances the experience of watching the game. A nice example of cognitive design- creating experience value and building brand. To quote:
“Our mission to get every Canadian closer to the game one goal at a time”
How can you build brand on the emerging internet of things? More generally, what new service and business opportunities does it present?
Internet of Things graphic: IEEE Communication Society Blog
Red Light image: The Classic Install