Although many of the posts here on The Web Outside showcase LocaModa’s finished products, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to pass the baton over to one of our developers and let him shed a bit of light on what goes on behind the scenes here.

Ben, a Platform Architect here at LocaModa, has written a two-part blog post in which he details the asynchronous sending and receiving of messages, as well as synchronous request/response using ActiveMQ and Spring.

Ben will be representing Loca at SXSW, so feel free to pick his brain in person if you’re headed to Austin. (He looks basically like the profile pic above, except in color.) If not, you can always hit him up on Twitter or leave a comment here.

First, I’ll let the photos speak for themselves:

And now I’ll fill in the gaps…

LocaModa announced today that we’ll be running our Loca Foursquare App on the Clear Channel Spectacolor unit on Miracle Mile in Vegas! We also have commitments from other network partners as well, including IndoorDIRECT, who will run the app across their network of quick-serve restaurants, including Wendy’s and Carl’s, Jr.

The Loca Team will be in Vegas in full force next week to pay our regards to the almighty Spectacolor screen!

Perhaps I should amend my equation above?

LocaModa + Foursquare + Vegas + 126ft LED display + Carl’s Black Angus Burger + Biggie Frosty = Awesome.

No really, how good does that sound?

Full release available here.

I’m turning the blog over today to LocaModa’s CEO Stephen Randall for a special guest post on our integration with one of our favorite new services, Foursquare.

Recently, The Boston Globe reported on the latest location-based service to turn the heads of media mavens:

“Foursquare, the mobile phone software and accompanying website turn your daily peregrinations into a competition: every time you venture somewhere (your neighborhood Dunkin’ Donuts, or the Boston Garden), you use the Foursquare app or mobile Web site to “check in,” getting credit for being there. The person who has checked in the most at a particular location becomes the mayor — at least until someone else shows up more often and steals the title.” (“The 21st century’s version of ‘Killroy was here,’” The Boston Globe, Scott Kirsner, 28. January 2010).

Unless disabled by the user, Foursquare check-ins automatically send a message to the user’s “social graph” (the number of friends people have on social networks), and if the user so chooses, updates his Twitter feed as well. The average number of friends, followers or fans on social network sites such as Twitter is 126 (source: The Guardian, 29. June 2009). Facebook’s social graph is 130 (source: Facebook).

The user experience is fun and engaging, and it’s obvious why some enterprising venues have started to reward customers who use these apps to announce their presence to their friends. The merits of displaying location-based services for locations should be apparent – they are a user-generated marketing tool for the venue. It is therefore ironic that location-based services are not designed for place-based screens at all, but for web and mobile screens.

The Globe article went on to mention a local battle for mayorship of Toscanini’s, a well known café not far from MIT in Cambridge, MA. LocaModa’s HQ is five minutes away from Toscanini’s (Tosci’s to locals). As long-time fans of Tosci’s and friends of its larger-than-life owner, Gus, we use the café as a lab to test new place-based social media applications. In November ’09, we started testing Foursquare on Tosci’s LCD screen, the first time Foursquare was used as a real time interactive DOOH application.

The LocaModa Foursquare app (shown above) dynamically displays a picture of the mayor, the number of check-ins and user tips about the café. The screen also displays real time Twitter messages tagged “Toscanini” and “Tosci.”

I have previously written about ensuring place-based screens have a range of miles not feet (i.e. that they connect venues across channels to brand websites and social network fan pages etc). Location-based services are an excellent example of cross channel engagement and are therefore likely to be a mainstay of many place-based networks.

You can also download a pdf version of this post.

We may not be heading to Vancouver in February, but we are heading to Vegas to pick up some hardware of our own.

We were psyched to find out that we’re finalists for both an Apex Award for our work on GeorgeTweets and for a Content Award for our cross-channel campaign for VH1’s The Great Debate. The awards will be handed out at the Digital Signage Expo in Vegas on February 24th.

Congrats also go to our network partner Zoom Media & Marketing, who share the spotlight with us for both of these honors!

Who: LocaModa CEO Stephen Randall joins Janice Litvinoff from Cisco, Jeff Dumo from Array Interactive, and Bill Yackey from Digital Signage Today

When: January 28th, 2pm EST

Where: Your desk, kitchen counter, or that corner table at Peet’s with the slightly wobbly leg. Bring appropriate snacks and caffeine.

Why: The social media phenomenon has quickly spread and has changed the way people expect to receive information and communicate. Social media has changed the traditional one-to-many broadcast by connecting many-to-many through social media dialogues. Content consumers are transformed into content producers allowing you to strengthen your relationship and connection with your target audience.[src]

How: Register here!

You can also follow Stephen on Twitter!