Filed under: Business, Microsoft
Microsoft now serving ads on shopping carts
If you're the type of person that detests video screens placed in the grocery checkout line: those incessant, unavoidable peddlers; then you might want to start avoiding the grocery store altogether. In a new partnership with MediaCart Holdings and Wakefern Food, Microsoft has signed up to deliver personalized ads to shoppers through computerized shopping carts. Customers can scan their "customer loyalty cards" at the machine and receive ads and electronic coupons according to their buying history (you did know those cards recorded your purchase history, didn't you?).
Microsoft's part is to serve video ads to the computers through their Atlas technology, which they recently acquired with the $6 billion purchase of aQuantive last year.
In addition to ads, customers will be able to view the specials on the aisles in which they're shopping, and total all the items in their shopping cart prior to checking out. Do they not trust people to find the specials tags or perform simple addition? Maybe they've taken a deep look at our educational system...
MediaCart is expected to begin customer trials in ShopRite stores in the second half of this year.
[Via Yahoo! News]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jason said 4:49PM on 1-16-2008
Way to get that negative slant in there... this does have to do with Microsoft... and everything they do is bad...
How cay you see this as a bad thing? Maybe you don't go to the grocery but those of us who do would love ANYTHING that could save you some money and get you in and out quicker! I would love to know how much money I have spent automatically by what is in the cart.
Really just look at your recent headlines on this page that are related to this artice:
- British schools say no thanks to Vista and Office 2007
- Engadget interview Bill Gates
- Microsoft Search nowhere to be found
- Microsoft Download Center Beta uses Silverlight
- Windows Home Server eats files for lunch
5 articles and 4 of them are negative items about Microsoft products... maybe you shouldn't make it so obvious that you guys hate MS around here... maybe you can bring back the Unoffical Microsoft Weblog... do you guys just fire the writters that came over from that blog when it was shut down?
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Kristin Shoemaker said 5:59PM on 1-16-2008
We have a similar sort of self-checkout as you go at our local Stop and Shop chain. I have to say, I love it. It doesn't appear too many people actually USE it though.
It saves a boatload of time. I could care less about the running tally of what things cost, or the coupons... It's just so damned convenient to scan the whole thing at the end and pay, cause we bag as we go along.
It's always a bit unnerving when the ads cha-ching through though. My husband always thinks I scanned something inadvertently while walking down the aisle.
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