A Landmark for US Event Producers

NFC—the short-range wireless technology behind “touch-based” lead retrieval, access control, session scanning and other fundamental applications used at large tradeshows, conferences and corporate events—just crossed a tremendous chasm.

“Apple’s decision to include NFC in its iPhone 6 is a landmark for US event producers,” says ITN's President & CEO, Ivan Lazarev. “Apple has made NFC mainstream overnight.”

When the iPhone 6 is released to consumers on September 19, the NFC chip in the device will support mobile payments, named “Apple Pay” by the company.

However, analysts expect that future releases will open the NFC functionality in the new iPhone to developers of other applications.

“US event producers are is going to see a surge of new and important NFC applications, as soon as open NFC in the iPhone is supported,” Lazarev says.

Since 2011, the makers of Android smartphones have shipped all their products with NFC built in, while Apple—with a 42 percent share of the US smartphone market—shunned the technology.

“NFC has emerged as a key enabling technology at US events,” Lazarev says. “But until now its benefits haven’t been easily accessible to all participants, because nearly half carry iPhones.  For the past four years, we have been enabling exhibitors who use iPhones to capture leads by providing external sleeves that add NFC functionality to the phones. That workaround is effective, but will no longer be needed when every event participant—including iPhone users—will be carrying an NFC device.”

Apple’s announcement that it will include NFC in the iPhone 6 marks a clear turning point, solidifying the central role NFC will play at events for years to come.

“The game has irreversibly changed,” Lazarev says. “Apple’s decision means we will see a massive expansion in the NFC ecosystem—and ITN, as the leading provider of NFC event solutions, is uniquely positioned to take advantage of it.”

Content Feature Makes BCARD Reader All-Inclusive

Great news for exhibitors!

ITN’s lead management mobile app BCARD Reader now provides in-app lead fulfillment. The new feature allows an exhibitor to view, select and send targeted sales collateral at the moment of capture.

The Content feature of BCARD Reader supports rich media distribution from a mobile device. You can review your own online library of collateral pieces, match individual pieces to a lead’s specific interests, and send them to the lead instantly by email from within the app.

Before an event, you create your own online library of content on the BCARD Portal. You create the library by uploading PDFs, presentations, photos, audio files, Web links, YouTube pages and other collateral. The process is easy and there's no limit to the number of pieces you can upload.

At the event, you can view your content on the mobile device you’re using to capture leads. Whenever you capture a lead, you can select the content most appropriate to the individual and tap Send. That’s all there is to it!

The lead receives a custom email with links to the content you selected. Opens and click-throughs are tracked, so you can measure product interest.

There is no extra charge to use this new feature.

The new Content feature makes BCARD Reader an all-inclusive lead management tool, providing lead capture, qualification and fulfillment.

Learn more by watching a brief video.

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.

Access Control & Tracking at Licensing 2014

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.