My-iButton; New Tech ID – Or Advertising OD?

The old fashioned name tag may soon be obsolete as technology leaps to your lapels. Or maybe it's more a marketing leap than a technological one.

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Whatever it is, get ready for My-iButton, a product the company says can turn anyone into an interactive, on-the-go advertisement, promotion or other message. And isn't that just what the world needs? My-iButton is a lightweight, programmable multimedia gizmo that comes with its own little video screen and speakers. The company says it's "an ideal way to interactively and interpersonally demonstrate and promote products, services and information in a fun and exciting way." And it lets you do it without having to silk screen your slogan or whatever onto a T shirt or carry a sign. The button can be pinned to your clothing or be worn around your neck as a lanyard; you can wear it as a name tag, and you could even sell commercial space on it, which beats the heck out of having a logo tattooed to your forehead permanently. The little video screen can be used to show slide shows, presentations, videos, press kits and advertisements and since it also has speakers built in the product actually speaks for itself, kind of. I could see the My-iButton being popular at trade shows, if they can get the $80 price down a few tads, and it could be an interesting way to promote the special of the day if you can make it viewable on a small screen. Non-commercial uses could include showing a short video of your new baby, slides of your vacation – or whatever personal messages you want, perhaps a birthday wish or a greeting displayed by parents, grandparents, family members and friends. Who knows, since you could use it to help spread the word about lost or abducted children, it could even be a life saver or crime fighter. Quite a lot of potential for a little gewgaw, assuming it works as advertised – and I have no reason to think it doesn't. I haven't tried a My-iButton, but the concept seems pretty straightforward. The product, which can be rotated to either a landscape or portrait view, was apparently inspired by those political campaign pins that have candidates' pictures on them, the kind of thing you'd use to make your point and then throw away. My-iButton's CEO Richard Quintana envisions them as a way to add a 21st century twist to a tried and true advertising method. "I always noticed large political pins with pictures on them," he says. "The buttons are used for one event and tossed in a box or thrown away. I thought, why not create a pin that can be used over and over, changed at anytime, and can display a variety of different interactive images and messages?" The rest, he hopes, will make history. And profits. Quintana and his team took that basic idea and expanded the My-iButton's technical capabilities beyond the original concept of a simple video badge. The current My-iButton sports a two inch color screen, is fully rechargeable and claims a battery life of eight hours or more on a full charge. Content can be changed by downloading whatever propaganda you want to inflict on the world around you from a USB port. And of course the My-iButton's uses are limited only by your imagination, or possibly your sense of taste or decorum. Since My-iButtons are supposed to run for up to eight hours on a charge, you can annoy a whole bunch of people at a time – and the basic multimedia unit can be personalized through a variety of pre-designed bezels from beer bottles to baseballs. You can even start indoctrinating the kids into your favorite gender stereotype, thanks to their "It's a Boy" Baby Blue Button or "It's a Girl" Pretty in Pink Button. I can see the protest signs already – hey, there's another use for the thing: protests for and against stuff! Heck, you could display picture of a different colored ribbon each day and really feel smug. Yessirree, if you wear your heart on your sleeve, you can wear it on your chest now, too, digitally! It brings new meaning to the concept of someone being a walking billboard for something.