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OTX planning box office-style tracking of games market
One more sign we're moving towards a world where marketing for all media is intrinsically tied together? OTX Research today announced plans for video game market tracking, firing a warning shot over the bows of GameSpot's Trax service and IGN's GamerMetrics, not to mention NPD and EEDAR. Rather than offering various metrics based on target audiences (in the case of IGN and GameSpot) or retail sales numbers which exclude a variety of alternate purchasing options (in the case of NPD and EEDAR), OTX plans to track online retailers and has brokered a deal with GameFly and AERS (eBay data handler). "We range from people who spend three hours a week on Yahoo Games to people who spend 50 hours a week on Xbox Live," OTX's director of gaming Nick Williams told The Cut Scene, referencing the company's data gathering methods. OTX has been interviewing large sections of folks that play games, mirroring the model used by the film and television industry. OTX also says it's looking to move into other media, combining the research found in games with film and television to predict sales trends across multiple entertainment mediums. "You can look at that model and say, 'Don't launch game X when movie Y is opening.' Because all these things are interconnected now." Or at least they will be, Mr. Williams. These things do take time, after all, so you'll excuse us if we don't hold our breath.
Turtles don solar-powered communicators in the name of science
For biologists who aren't down with tracking blazing fast cheetahs and computer engineers who aren't keen on their hardware just galloping away, strapping solar-powered communicators on none other than a 40-pound turtle was a no-brainer. Dubbed M16, the giant snapper commandeered by scientists from the University of Massachusetts is now sporting a "postcard-sized waterproof computer" that tracks and records data about the endangered species and beams it back to the campus when the creature moseys on by a base station. Much like a few military applications we've seen, the idea here is to "create a network of constantly moving devices (or animals) that record and store information, transmit data from one device to another," and finally upload it into a database. No word on whether webcams or high-powered lasers will get added in to the second wave of shell-bound rigs.
