Out with the Old. In with the New.

The ubiquity of NFC smartphones assures the end of lead retrieval as we know it—an activity that requires special-purpose devices and costs exhibitors money.

In a recent interview with Exhibit City News' assistant editor Krissy Obeng, ITN's CEO Ivan Lazarev predicts that exhibitors soon will no longer need to rent lead retrieval equipment in order to capture leads at events.

"Traditional badging as we know it will disappear," according to Lazarev.

Tomorrow's event badges will be digital. Exhibitors will capture leads by bumping their NFC phones against attendees' NFC phones.

"The digital badge will be contained in a smartphone. Exhibitors will no longer rent devices from registration companies. They won’t need registration companies to get contact data," Lazarev says.

Read the full article here.

ITN Shortlisted for Prestigious Award

ITN has been shortlisted for the 2014 Event Technology Awards.

Our use of BTAGs on the IBC Media Wall has been included in the award category "Best Use of Technology at an Exhibition/Trade Show."

Winners in all categories will be announced in London tomorrow.

Proximity Technology Trending, Says FreemanXP

Team members of FreemanXP scouted the floor of EventTech 2014 in Las Vegas this week (where ITN was an exhibitor) and nominated the top tech trends in experiential marketing based on the products they saw on display.

Heading the team's nominations was proximity technology.

"Proximity technology is growing in popularity as the barrier to entry is getting lower and lower–expect wearables, RFID, NFC, and more to play a big a role in event environments moving forward," the team reported.

ITN’s BTAGs Deliver Content at NAVC Conference

When it comes to wowing attendees, exhibitors and sponsors, content is king.

That’s why the organizers of the NAVC Conference 2014 took advantage of ITN’s new BTAG to deliver attendees content by touch inside the NAVC Conference New Product Gallery.

Thirteen companies participated in the juried new-product showcase, always a popular feature of NAVC’s annual event. The organizers provided each participating company an ITN BTAG, programmed to deliver collateral materials relating to the product on display.

NAVC Conference 2014 attendees—like attendees at every B-to-B event—were hungry for new product information, and BTAG made it amazingly easy for them to acquire it.

Simply stated, a BTAG is an NFC reader or “hotspot.” When an attendee touches a BTAG with his or her badge, the device records the touch. When uploaded to ITN’s cloud, that touch is processed as a request for digital content. The content is sent to the attendee as a link via email.

In addition to functioning as an NFC reader (able to record badge-touches), the BTAG functions as an NFC tag (able to pass information to other readers). That means attendees can also use their NFC phones to interact with BTAGs.

BTAGs are compact, self-contained, battery-powered units. Each unit is Bluetooth enabled, allowing it to connect to a mobile phone and upload badge-touches to ITN’s cloud.

At your event, you can display BTAGs anywhere by affixing them to posters, signs, walls, stands, kiosks, tables or countertops.

You can assign to a BTAG any Web content (URL) you want: Websites, YouTube pages, Facebook pages, e-literature, presentations, photos, etc. Attendees who touch the BTAG with their badges receive an end-of-day email with a link to that content. Attendees who touch the BTAG with their NFC smartphones link directly to the URL.  You manage the content assigned to the BTAG through the BCARD Portal.

And because all the BTAG touches are uploaded to ITN’s cloud, they are available for tracking and analysis at any time.

ITN’s new BTAG gives organizers an innovative tool for adding value to their events. The solution is ideal for providing content that supports keynote addresses, educational sessions, sponsors’ exhibits, and special displays like the NAVC New Product Gallery. BTAGs can also be used effectively for gamifying any event.

BTAGs Deliver Content for SONY at IBC 2014

ITN Shortlisted for Event Technology Award

News from the UK: ITN's BTAG has been shortlisted for the prestigious Event Technology Award in the category "Best Use of Technology at an Exhibition." The judges liked the way we deployed BTAGs to support the Media Wall at IBC 2013. The winner in the category will be announced at an awards ceremony 13 November in London.

You can learn more about the IBC Media Wall by watching a brief video.

Event Producers Name Top 10 Event Tech Trends

A new research report from The X Letter, The Next Tech Trends for Live Events & Experiences, explores the 10 technologies most likely to have significant impact on live events, according to a survey of event producers.

Seven of the 10 technologies included on the list are specialties of ITN:

• Cloud-based event planning tools captured the Number 2 spot
• The Internet of Things captured the Number 5 spot
• Wearable technology captured the Number 6 spot
• RFID/NFC captured the Number 7 spot
• Beacons captured the Number 8 spot
• Big data captured the Number 9 spot
• Real-time attendee analytics captured the Number 10 spot  

You can download the complete report by visiting The X Letter.

NXP Semiconductors on BTAGs

ITN's President & CEO Ivan Lazarev recently asked Jeff Fonseca, Director of Business Development & Sales, NXP Semiconductors, to explain why his company benefits by using ITN's new BTAGs at tradeshows.  Jeff says that BTAGs enable NXP to interact with attendees at every demo area in the company's booth, while tracking their specific product interests. Jeff can also share the leads generated by BTAGs with partners at the close of a show based on the leads' product interests.

NFC Hotspots Simplify Content Delivery at Cartes America 2014

Exhibitors were the beneficiaries of a big leap in content delivery technology at Cartes America 2014 this week in Las Vegas, courtesy of ITN.

ITN, the official lead retrieval provider for Cartes 2014, provided every exhibitor who ordered a lead retrieval solution a complimentary BTAG, an innovative wireless hotspot that capitalizes on near-field communication (NFC) to simplify the delivery of content to attendees.

Attendees take advantage of the self-serve hotspots by touching them with their show badges. The touch logs the attendee’s request for whatever content the exhibitor has assigned to the BTAG.

Links to that content are provided to the attendee at the end of each day of the event through an email.  A cumulative email is also sent at the close of the event with all the links assigned to all the BTAGs the attendee touched throughout the entire event.

Email opens and click-throughs are tracked by ITN’s back-end system and reported to exhibitors.

Exhibitors at Cartes America 2014 were impressed by the BTAG’s elegance. ITN has made it easy for exhibitors to upload product information and assign it to a BTAG. And they appreciated the fact that attendees don’t need a special device to collect that content—all they need is their event badge. BTAGs make it easy for attendees to bring home sharable product info, and easy for exhibitors to identify by attendee who’s interested in their products.

As well as functioning as an NFC reader—able to read badge-touches—each BTAG is also an active NFC tag able to pass information to other readers.  As a result, attendees can also touch any BTAG with an NFC phone or tablet to acquire content. In this case, the attendee’s device simply opens the Web link assigned by the exhibitor to the BTAG.

BTAGs are self-contained, battery-powered units that can be affixed with Velcro to any surface, including posters, signs, walls, tables, counters, kiosks and other structures.  A BTAG can also be worn by booth staff, or deployed on pods supplied by ITN.

Exhibitor NXP Uses BTAGs to Deliver Branded Content

ITN's new BTAG is a touch marketing tool that boosts the impact of presentations and demonstrations. A live NFC touchspot, BTAG delivers content whenever an attendee touches it with his or her event badge or NFC smartphone. BTAG lets attendees take home branded content in the easiest way imaginable—by turning their badges and phones into “digital tote bags.” Learn how exhibitor NXP used BTAGs at Mobile World Congress 2014.